Swank Lab
Ryan is working toward artificial muscle production on flexible matrices, which he will mechanically characterize. He also helped characterize TDT force-velocity relations for the upcoming TDT paper.
Jeremie has been assisting Seemanti on her many projects since joining in September of 2008. He has waded through many megabytes of data while assisting us, and has taken strides toward becoming a successful muscle dissector. He is currently spending most of his time working on the molecular biology converter region cloning project.
Soyo is an artist who crosses the fields of art and biology to investigate the intrinsic organization of picture signs present in scientific visualizations. As an artist, she observes and develops procedures for adapting nature into a variety of visual cultures. She has been contributing to our scientific research by producing photographs and illustrations of muscle samples via DIC and TIRF micrography. She is currently working on the TEM imaging of TDT ultrastructure.
Georgia joined our lab in the fall of 2007. She helped in the analysis of large quantities of motility data for the figures presented on a poster for the 2008 Biophysical Society Meeting. She has a well-developed set of lab skills including fly microdissection techniques, protein purification from biological materials, molecular cloning and protein expression techniques and is learning FPLC protein purification and classical Drosophila genetics this summer.
Catherine is involved in many of the projects in the lab. She is performs actomyosin motility assays, presenting a poster at the 2008 Biophysical Society meeting on the effect of changes in the concentration of ionic strength, ADP, inorganic phosphate, and ATP on actin motility rate. She performs muscle mechanics experiments on the TDT (jump) muscle, and presented a poster on this project at the 2009 Biophysical Society meeting. Catherine is collaborating with our colleagues from University of York and UCSF on the role of TnC isoforms and active site differences between fast and slow myosins.
Qian is currently producing recombinant DNA constructs that will be used to produce transgenic Drosophila expressing different versions of the myosin converter region in their indirect flight and jump muscles. She is also involved in investigating the contribution of stretch activation to muscle power generation via work loop mechanics projects along with graduate student Christine Zhao. Qian is mechanically characterizing muscle fibers expressing myosin converter region mutants.
Seemanti is working on understanding the role of the myosin converter domain in setting muscle stiffness and force generation of the indirect flight muscle myosin. She presented on the topic at the 2009 Biophysical Society Meeting. She will be determining structural differences in Drosophila converter domain variants, and is using molecular biological techniques to create transgenic flies.
Dr. Swank has been a member of the RPI faculty since 2005. He heads a dynamic, multidisciplinary laboratory of students, staff, and post-docs. He teaches Human Physiology to undergraduate Biology majors and helps team teach various graduate courses.
Current Swank Lab Members
John is a new undergraduate student in our lab. He is making rapid strides toward becoming a dissector and is learning about the research methods that will be necessary to run a muscle mechanics experiment.
As an RPI graduate from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Mia comes to us with a great technical background and over 4 years of industry experience. Her initial projects involve the construction of a new muscle mechanics rig and learning the dissection techniques necessary to the running of mechanics assays. We are very happy to have her on board!
Justin is a new member of our lab who exhibits a great deal of enthusiasm and has quickly become productive in molecular biology techniques and whole fly assays. He plans on bringing the skills he learns with us back into his classroom next year.
Christine comes to our lab with good vertebrate muscle physiology experience. Her current project investigates calcium-dependent stretch activation in Drosophila indirect flight muscles and work-loop assays.
