Arash Bashirullah, associate professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division, is the principal investigator of a new R01 award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The $1.2M award will fund studies of exocytosis—the process by which material is secreted from a biological cell.

Defects in exocytosis have been linked with many human diseases, including diabetes mellitus, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hormone-related cancers, and pituitary, thyroid, salivary, and adrenal gland dysfunction. Despite the enormous clinical significance of exocytosis, the regulators of this process are poorly characterized.

The aim of the project titled, “Genetic analysis of regulated exocytosis during Drosophila development,” is to functionally characterize newly-identified proteins in the exocytosis pathway. These studies will provide novel insights and a new framework for the future development of targeted therapies to combat diseases that currently devastate millions of lives.

Bashirullah’s research program uses a simple model organism, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, to uncover and understand new, clinically-relevant physiological processes.