My lab studies the structure and function of ion channels, a family of membrane proteins that play many key roles in neuroscience and which are a major target of essential drugs used in clinical medicine. High-resolution structures of several potassium channels have opened up the field of structure-function in ion channels, and we are now in a position to ask detailed questions about how function is achieved through structure in this essential class of proteins. How do voltage-dependent ion channels sense the membrane potential? Through what structural rearrangements do these channels achieve voltage-dependent ion flow across the membrane? Why is a subset of structurally conserved ion channels targeted by many structurally diverse drugs? These are some of the questions that we attempt to answer. The lab uses both structural and functional approaches to address these questions. The main structural techniques are X-ray crystallography and EPR spectroscopy, while our main functional approach is electrophysiology.