Optical mapping of electrical activity in excitable syncytia; Regulation of Intracellular Calcium in heart and skeletal muscle; Mechanisms of action of Nitric Oxide on Intracellular Calcium Handling.

Description of projects available to graduate students:
This lab has pionneered the use of voltage-sensitive dyes and imaging techniques to simultaneously measure electrical events from multiple sites on heart or other electrically excitable biological preparations. Voltage-sensitive dyes are being used to map waves of activation, repolarization and heterogeneities of refractoriness in normal hearts and in models of hearts with the long QT syndrome. Mechanisms responsible for the initiation and termination of ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation are studied by eliciting arrhythmias by electrical stimulation, agents that alter specific ion channels of the heart and in molecularly engineered mice with specific ion channel mutations. Models of heart failure are alos being investigated using a mouse model of heart failure produced by the over expression of TNFa. Nitric oxide has been shown to trigger calcium release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum by a direct molecular interaction with the Ca2+ release channel or ryanodine receptor. Current stuides involve the identification of the amino acid residue involved in this aspect of NO-dependent regulation calcium and force.

Techniques graduate student will learn:
TBA