Swank Lab
Charlotte Kaplan
Undergraduate Class of 2008
Department of Biology
Michael Walker
Undergraduate Class of 2009
Department of Biology
Alison Berney
Undergraduate Class of 2008
Department of Biology
Maria Thatcher
Undergraduate Class of 2009
Department of Biomedical Engineering
James Seger
Research Specialist
Department of Biology
Chaoxing Yang
Post-Doctoral Research Assistant
Department of Biology
Hope Stansfield
Second Year Graduate Student Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Matthew Oakley
Undergraduate Class of 2007
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Chaoxing pioneered our improved jump muscle dissection technique. She studied how the relay domain responded to load to alter muscle kinetics. She produced the first mechanical data out of Dr. Swank’s new lab at RPI.
Dimitre’s excellent dissection skills and long hours generated half the data for our first TDT mechanics paper. He helped improved the technique used for dissecting Drosophila jump muscles, which greatly increased the success rate of TDT experiments.
Charlotte came to our lab as an athlete interested in learning how muscles work. Her first project involved wing-beat testing various fly lines. She measured the maximum time flies were able to continuously fly. She was instrumental in helping get the in vitro motility assay up and running and spent many hours analyzing motility data. She also analyzed IFM mechanics data to derive cross-bridge rate constants. Her highly-skilled hands will be missed on group dissection days!
Maria was assisted in the motility project, and spent almost an entire summer analyzing and organizing motility data. She worked with collaborator Dr. Patrick Dillon of Michigan State University to determine ATP concentration in flight muscle. She also spent some time performing IFM work-loop assays on the muscle mechanics rigs and was always a helpful pair of hands when dissecting flies for a myosin prep.
While working in our lab, Mike quickly learned the dissection techniques necessary to be a productive member. He was a frequent attendant of our group-dissection days, and he spent some time developing work-loop analysis software.
Though a lab member for only one year, Allie’s efforts were utilized on many different projects. She performed sequence comparisons on the converter region isoforms which was used in a paper published in September of 2008. Allie tested the flight ability of relay mutant flies. She also assisted in the transgenic fruit fly project with Seemanti Ramanath, was a regular attendee of group dissection days, and spent quite a bit of time performing motility data analysis.
Jim investigated the influence of myosin structural regions on muscle mechanical rate constants using sinusoidal analysis of indirect flight muscle expressing transgenic myosin constructs. He also maintained the muscle mechanics rig.
During her rotation with us, Hope spent most of her time on the motility computer performing the analysis on one very prolific motility assay.
Matt redesigned portions of the platform of our primary mechanics rig to increase its versatility so that a wider range of fiber types could be mechanically evaluated.
Brandon designed a system to pipe coolant through all of our dissection stages. This system allows us to dissect our flies with greatly reduced protein degradation. He also helped with the maintenance of the muscle mechanics rig.
Lucas is interested in the molecular modeling of dynamic protein interactions. He produced a series of pre-power stroke models of the 5 different versions of the Drosophila myosin converter domain. He also completed a series of muscle mechanics experiments in collaboration with Qian Wang using work loops to determine if optimal IFM power production corresponds to physiological conditions during flight.
Leyla is interested in bioinformatics. She has quickly become a capable dissector and is learning to run muscle mechanics assays. During her rotation with our lab, Leyla modeled the post-power stroke configurations of the 5 versions of the Drosophila myosin converter domain.
Eric has joined our lab as an experienced molecular biologist and protein chemist. While here, he worked on the converter region cloning project with Seemanti. We wish him luck at the NYS DOH!
