Professor and Chair Joseph Metzger

This lab focuses on the physiology of the heart, from the molecular level up to whole-animal function. The focus of the lab is twofold: myofilament function and the role of dystrophin in health and disease. The goal of the lab is to define novel therapeutics for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and heart failure/ischemic cardiomyopathy. They approach this through gene therapy, small molecules and polymer-based therapeutics tested in cell culture models, primary cells, organ-level function, and whole-animal function. Through this integrative approach the researchers utilize many techniques which utilize MSI resources, specifically software packages for analysis of DNA sequences and post-processing of other data. They also use MSI for processing and storing RNA-seq data.