Muscle Cell Function Laboratory - Honours in 2009
An Honours project undertaken in this lab would be administered by the Discipline of Physiology.
The causes of cardiac malfunction in a mouse model of cardiomyopathy
Supervisor + contact details:
- Professor David G Allen
- Associate Professor Chris Semsarian
A severe model of cardiomyopathy has recently been developed by Dr Semsarian's group by inducing mutations in both troponin I and myosin heavy chain in the hearts of mice. These mice die by the age of 21 days with a severe dilated heart disease causing heart failure and arrhythmias. The project aims to understand the pathways where by the mutations cause severe heart disease. In the proposed project calcium handling will be studied in ventricular cells of the normal and diseased hearts as well as the signalling pathways which may trigger the cardiac disease. The project will involve calcium measurement in Prof. Allen's lab and studies of signalling pathways in Dr Semsarian's lab.
