Harpreet Singh (Physiologist)
Harpreet Singh is an American Physiologist, Professor at the Department Of Physiology and Cell Biology The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and secretary of the Biophysical Society.
Early life and education
Prof. Singh was born in Odhra Dasuya India.. He attended Chail Military School, and moved to Bangalore as an undergraduate student to pursue B.Sc. in Chemistry, microbiology and zoology at St. Joseph's University, Bangalore. He moved to the University of Edinburgh for his doctoral research, where he studied chloride intracellular channels. He was a postdoc at University of California, Los Angeles, where he was promoted as a research assistant professor.
Research and career
Singh was appointed Assistant professor at Drexel University, in 2013 where he stablished an intracellular ion channel laboratory. In 2018, he was appointed as an Associate professor at The Ohio State University where he was promoted to Professor. He is known for studies investigating the molecular identity and physiological functions of intracellular ion channels, particularly those located within mitochondria. His work has contributed to understanding how ion transport regulates mitochondrial function, cellular stress responses, and cardiovascular health.
One of his most cited contributions demonstrated that the mitochondrial large-conductance calcium-activated potassium channel (mitoBK) is encoded by the KCNMA1 gene and targeted to mitochondria through alternative splicing mechanisms. The study helped clarify the molecular basis of a channel implicated in mitochondrial signaling and cardioprotection. Singh has also published extensively on chloride intracellular channel (CLIC) proteins and their roles in mitochondrial biology and disease.
The recent remarkable discovery is of functional ion channels in extracellular vesicles. He is credited with starting the research area of ion channels in exosomes and extracellular vesicles.
Scientific Leadership
Singh has held leadership positions in several scientific organizations. In 2026 he was elected Secretary-Elect of the Biophysical Society, one of the world's largest organizations devoted to biophysics research. He also served as a co-chair of Bioenergetic, mitochondria and metabolism (BMM) subgroup at the Biophysical Society. He has also served as Vice-Chair and later Co-Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Organellar Channels and Transporters and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Honors and Recognition
Singh is a Fellow of the American Heart Association and a Fellow of the Cardiovascular Section of the American Physiological Society.
His research discoveries have received attention in university and news-media reports covering mitochondrial mechanisms of cardiovascular disease and cancer-associated cardiac dysfunction, reflecting broader interest in the translational implications of his work (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).
Select publications
- Sanghvi, S*., Sridharan, D*., Evans, P., Dougherty, J., Szteyn, K., Gabrilovich, D., Dyta, M., Weist, J., Pierre, S. V., Gururaja Rao, S., Halm, D. R., Chen, T., Athanasopoulos, P. S., Dolga, A. M., Yu, L., and Khan, M#., and H. Singh#. 2025. Functional large-conductance calcium and voltage-gated potassium channels in extracellular vesicles act as gatekeepers of structural and functional integrity. Nature Communications. 16, 42.
- Ponnalagu, D., Hamilton, S., Sanghvi, S., Antelo, D., Schwieterman, N., Hansra, I., Xu, X., Gao, E., Edwards, J. C., Bansal, S., Wold, L., Terentyev, D., Janssen, P., Hund, T. J., Khan, M, Kohut, A. R., Koch, W. J., and H. Singh. 2022. CLIC4 Localizes to Mitochondrial Associated Membranes and Mediates Cardioprotection. Science Advances. 8(42) eabo1244.
- Ponnalagu D., Gururaja Rao S., Farber J., Xin W., Hussain A.T., Shah K., Tanda S., Edwards J. C., Berryman M., Bopassa J.C., and H. Singh, 2016. Molecular Identity of Cardiac Mitochondrial Chloride Intracellular Channels. Mitochondrion 27:6-14.
- Singh H., Lu R., Bopassa J. C., Meredith A., Stefani E., and L. Toro. 2013. MitoBK(Ca) is encoded by the Kcnma1 gene, and a splicing sequence defines its mitochondrial location. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U S A. 110:26;