UMass Amherst research discovers new channel-gating mechanism

(University of Massachusetts at Amherst) Computational biophysicists are not used to making discoveries, says Jianhan Chen at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, so when he and colleagues cracked the secret of how cells regulate Big Potassium (BK) channels, they thought it must be a computational artifact. But after many simulations and tests, they convinced themselves that they have identified the BK gating mechanism that had eluded science for many years.