Dr. Reinhold Penner, Cannabinoids as Modulators of Calcium and Inflammation

June 2023

Dr. Reinhold Penner is the Director of Research at The Center for Biomedical Research at The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. He obtained his PhD from the University of Giessen, Germany, in 1986 and spent his Postdoc time until 1990 in the lab of Nobel Laureate Dr. Erwin Neher at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. He then became a group leader in Dr. Neher’s department where he worked for 8 years before relocating to Honolulu in 1997. Here he established the Center for Biomedical Research at The Queen’s Medical Center, where he currently serves as the Director of Research. 

He is internationally recognized for his seminal work on ion channels in cell biology with extensive research experience in the areas of immunology, neuroscience, and cardiovascular research, employing methodologies of biophysics, molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, pharmacology and toxicology. His work has contributed to the understanding of store-operated calcium entry and led to the discovery the Calcium Release-Activated Calcium (CRAC) channels. His laboratory also contributed to the discovery and characterization of several TRP channels, including TRPM2, TRPM4, TRPM5, and TRPM7. His group is now involved in drug discovery efforts for a range of ion channels involved in inflammation, autoimmune diseases, pain, diabetes, and cancer.

More details can be found here.

Previous Webinars

Kenneth Frost, PhD.

Wed, Nov. 20, 11:00AM MST

Recognizing diseases of hemp grown in the U.S. Pacific Northwest

Ken Frost is an Associate Professor and Extension Plant Pathologist in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University. His research and extension program is located at the Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Hermiston, Oregon, […]

Read More »

Joshua Kellogg, PhD.

Wed, Oct. 16, 11:00AM MST

Cannabinoids: From the Plant to the Gut

Dr. Joshua Kellogg is an Assistant Professor at the Pennsylvania State University, where his lab employs transdisciplinary approaches at the interface of analytical chemistry, chemical biology, natural product chemistry, and molecular biology to further human, plant, animal, and environmental health. His team works to […]

Read More »

Godfrey Pearlson, PHD.

10 October 2024, 1:00PM MST

Cannabis and driving: knowns and known unknowns

Dr. Pearlson’s medical training was at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England. Following internship he completed a graduate degree in philosophy at Columbia University in New York and was then successively a resident, postdoctoral fellow and faculty member at Johns Hopkins […]

Read More »

Suman Chandra, MPhil, PhD.

18 September 2024, 11:AM MST

Cannabis: An Old Plant with New Horizons, Botany and Biomass Production for the Drug Development

Dr. Chandra earned his M.Phil. degree in Environmental Plant Physiology and his Ph.D. in Plant Physiology from The High Altitude Plant Physiology Research Center, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University), India. From 1992 to 2000, […]

Read More »

Carrie Cuttler, PHD.

12 September 2024, 1:00PM MST

Chronic and Acute Effects of High Potency Cannabis Flower and Concentrates on Cognition

Dr. Carrie Cuttler received her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and subsequently conducted a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at UBC. She is currently an Associate Professor and Director of […]

Read More »

Dmitry Kurouski, PhD

Raman spectroscopy-assisted diagnosis of cannabis physiological differences

Dmitry Kurouski earned his MS in Biochemistry from Belarusian State University, Belarus and PhD (Distinguished Dissertation) in Analytical Chemistry from SUNY Albany, NY, USA. After a Postdoc in the laboratory of Professor Richard P. Van Duyne at Northwestern University, Dr Kurouski joined BoehringerIngelheim Pharmaceuticals, where he worked […]

Read More »