A Wayne State University School of Medicine faculty member will be among the keynote speakers for the 21st annual Congress of International Drug Discovery Science and Technology next month in Kobe, Japan.

Bhanu Jena, Ph.D., D.Sc., the George E. Palade University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Physiology, will present “The Porosome Secretory Nanomachine: Discovery to Therapy” on May 12 during the congress meeting.

In the mid-1990s, Dr. Jena discovered the then-new porosome cellular structure, which governs secretion in cells. During the next 30 years, he and his research team solved the structure and composition of the porosome complex, and functionally reconstituted it into lipid membrane and in live cells.

Porosomes are cup-shaped lipoprotein structures at the cell plasma membrane, where secretory vesicles transiently dock and fuse to release intra-vesicular contents during secretion. Porosomes measure around 100 to 180 nanometers in endocrine and exocrine cells and 15 nanometers at the nerve terminal. Porosomes are composed of approximately 30 proteins. The principles discovered and described by Dr. Jena proved to be universal, operating similarly in all animal cells.

A number of human diseases are caused by mutations in some of the 30+ proteins composing the porosome complex. Dr. Jena’s discovery of the porosome, in addition to providing a deep understanding of cell secretion, has contributed to the establishment of a drug development platform for the treatment of a wide range of diseases. Among the examples of the therapeutic application of the porosome discovery is the reconstitution of the porosome complex into the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator mutated cells that restore normal mucin secretion, and porosome reconstitution into stem cell-derived insulin-secreting beta cells in the treatment of Type 1 diabetes.

In recent years, Dr. Jena's laboratory has developed Differential Expansion Microscopy, and novel approaches to understanding the energetics of single biological molecules as they interact with other molecules, including ions, capable of revealing the structure-function of proteins at the single molecular level and its use in detection of pathogens, disease and therapy.