Cellular and molecular mechanisms of cardiac muscle contraction in health and disease

The major area of research in my lab is understanding the molecular mechanisms that govern the regulation of contractile function in the cardiac sarcomere. In particular, we are focused on unraveling the functional roles of contractile proteins in the modulation of force generation and cross-bridge kinetics in cardiac muscle.  We study the functional effects of post-translational modifications of contractile proteins at the level of the myofilaments and in vivo whole organ function, and how genetic defects in these proteins lead to altered cross-bridge function and the development of impaired contractile function in vivo and ultimately dilated and hypertrophic cardiomyopathies. We employ a variety of molecular and biophysical techniques to study cross-bridge function and cardiac muscle mechanics. We utilize knockout and transgenic animal models as well as in vivo gene transfer techniques to study the functional roles of contractile proteins on in vivo cardiac function using echocardiography, pressure-volume catheterization, and magnetic resonance imaging.