The researchers, in collaboration with a West Coast biotech firm, are investigating an ion channel that may be used to reduce pain.

Erik Cordes, marine biologist and assistant professor of biology at Temple, will lead an NSF-funded, three-week research cruise in the Gulf of Mexico to explore the effects of rising ocean acidification on deepwater corals. The cruise will take place next spring aboard the state-of-the-art research vessel Atlantis, operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.