Prof. John Lemasters
GlaxoSmithKline Distinguished Endowed Chair
Director, Center for Cell Death, Injury & Regeneration
Departments of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Medical University of South Carolina, USA

Host: Eeva-Liisa Eskelinen (eeva-liisa.eskelinen@utu.fi)
In case you wish to meet with Prof. Lemasters, please contact the host.

Dr. Lemasters’ research interests include the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying toxic, hypoxic and ischemia-reperfusion injury to liver and heart. His laboratory applies new techniques of laser scanning confocal and multiphoton microscopy to characterize the physiology of single living cells, including the assessment of ion homeostasis, chelatable iron, mitochondrial function, electrical potentials, oxygen and nitrogen free radical formation, membrane permeability and other biochemical parameters during the pathogenesis of lethal cell injury.

 Selected publications

DeHart DN, Fang D, Heslop K, Li L, Lemasters JJ, Maldonado EN. Opening of voltage dependent anion channels promotes reactive oxygen species generation, mitochondrial dysfunction and cell death in cancer cells. Biochem Pharmacol. 2018 Feb;148:155-162. doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2017.12.022. Epub 2017 Dec 28.

Maldonado EN, DeHart DN, Patnaik J, Klatt SC, Gooz MB, Lemasters JJ. ATP/ADP turnover and import of glycolytic ATP into mitochondria in cancer cells is independent of the adenine nucleotide translocator. J Biol Chem. 2017 Oct 13;292(41):16969. doi: 10.1074/jbc.A116.734814.

Teplova VV, Kruglov AG, Kovalyov LI, Nikiforova AB, Fedotcheva NI, Lemasters JJ. Glutamate contributes to alcohol hepatotoxicity by enhancing oxidative stress in mitochondria. J Bioenerg Biomembr. 2017 Jun;49(3):253-264. doi: 10.1007/s10863-017-9713-0. Epub 2017 May 6.

Liu Q, H Rehman, Y Krishnasamy, RG Schnellmann, JJ Lemasters and Z Zhong. Improvement of liver injury and survival by JNK2 and iNOS deficiency in liver transplants from cardiac death mice. J Hepatol 2015, 63:68-74.