Associate Professor
Howard University College of Medicine
My lab’s research focuses on evolution and development of head and heart musculature and tissue interactions needed for normal development of these muscles. Due to the evolutionary and comparative developmental component of the research, my lab studies a variety of chordates including lampreys, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals (mainly mice). We use traditional research methods such as macro- and microdissections, histology (serial sections), and combine these with more modern techniques as qRT-PCR, transcriptomics, antibody staining, and in-situ hybridization, among others. My lab is currently funded by one NSF grant and several smaller grants supported the research and researchers over the past eight years. Regularly, Master and PhD students train in my lab, as well as medical students who aim to gain research experience. My collaborators, students, and I have described the development of head musculature in a wide array of specimens, and have analyzed developmental patterns throughout vertebrates. With the discovery that heart and head musculature development is much more closely connected than previously thought, we turned our attention to pathologies that effect head and heart muscles. Both groups are specified relatively early in development, but defective tissue interactions can cause muscular defects even after the head and heart lineages separate.
