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Biljana Jovov (b. 1949), postdoctoral fellow, received her M.D. at the University of Sarajevo in 1975. She received her M.Sc. in pharmacology at the University of Tuzla in 1984 and completed specialization in clinical pharmacology at University of Zagreb in 1985. She joined Dr. Simon A. Lewis' laboratory in the Department of Physiology at University Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, in 1988 as a postdoctoral fellow and continue her postdoctoral education in Dr. Dale J. Benos' laboratory in the Department of Physiology at University of Alabama at Birmingham since 1993.
My present research interest focuses on Cl- channel biochemistry and molecular biology and the dysfunction of regulation of these channels in cystic fibrosis (CF). I developed a protocol for the simultaneous isolation of an outwardly rectified chloride channel (ORCC) and the cystic fibrosis transmembrane cobductance regulator (CFTR). The regulatory relationship between the ORCC and CFTR was preserved throughout the purification procedure as demonstrated by the CFTR-dependent PKA activation of ORCC incorporated in planar lipid bilayers. I demonstrated that CFTR is required for PKA activation of ORCC, and that only the functional form of CFTR can support activation of the ORCC. Using in vitro phosphorylation of isolated proteins, I have identified potential ORCC candidate proteins, and raised polyclonal antibodies against these isolated proteins. Transfer into planar lipid bilayers of material immunopurified using one of these antibodies as a ligand resulted in the incorporation of the ORCC. Neither the biochemistry and molecular biology of the ORCC are known at the present time, nor is the mechanism of CFTR regulation of the ORCC. This is future direction of my research.