Linda Boland

Linda Boland, Associate Professor of Biology, has been awarded a three-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, specifically the -National Institute of General Medical Services. The award of $278,682 will support 100 percent of three years of research for Boland, a post-doctoral fellow, and several of her students. Other students in her lab will be supported by the University of Richmond or other external funding sources.

The subject of her research is “Lipid Modulation of Potassium Channels,” and will focus on the modulation of potassium ion channels by membrane-derived polyunsaturated fatty acids. These are important dietary lipid signals, released following certain forms of cellular communication. This research has important health implications for how lipid signals impact proper rhythmic firing of heart muscle and some regions of the brain, memory disorders, pain, ischemic damage during stroke and heart attack and the physiological and pathological consequences of membrane stretch and changes in tissue salt concentration. A better understanding of how lipid signaling molecules alter cellular excitability is an important goal in biomedical research.

Boland came to the University of Richmond in 2004, after receiving degrees from Lafayette College (B.S.), Old Dominion University (M.S.), and UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D.), completing two post-doctoral positions at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, and teaching for ten years at the University of Minnesota Medical School.