Douglas Swank
Associate Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Biology Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
United States of America
Biography
Dr. Swank has been a member of the RPI faculty since 2005. He heads a dynamic, multidisciplinary laboratory of students, staff, and post-docs. His laboratory investigates how muscle is able to power an amazingly wide variety of locomotory tasks and modulate heart function.He received his Postdoctoral Fellow,from University of Vermont, 2005,in Muscle Mechanics and in 2000 Postdoctoral Fellow from San Diego State University,in Drosophila Genetics.He received his Ph.D. degree from University of Pennsylvania, 1995 in Physiology and done his B.S. from University of Rochester, 1990,in Biology.
Research Interest
Heart Disease, Muscle Disease, Cardiac Physiology
Publications
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Achal M., Trujillo A.S., Melkani G.C., Farman G.P., Ocorr K., Viswanathan M.C., Kaushik G., Newhard C.S., Glasheen B.M., Melkani A., Suggs J.A., Moore J.R., Swank D.M., Bodmer R., Cammarato A., and Bernstein S.I. (2016) A Restrictive Cardiomyopathy Mutation in an Invariant Proline at the Myosin Head/Rod Junction Enhances Head Flexibility and Function, Yielding Muscle Defects in Drosophila. Journal of Molecular Biology 428(11):2446-61.
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Zhao C., Swank D.M. (2017) The Drosophila indirect flight muscle myosin heavy chain isoform is insufficient to transform the jump muscle into a highly stretch-activated muscle type. American Journal of Physiology: Cell Physiology 312(2):C111-C118.
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Suggs J.A., Melkani G.C., Glasheen B.M., Detor M.M., Melkani A., Marsan N.P., Swank D.M., Bernstein S.I. (2017) A Drosophila model of dominant inclusion body myopathy type 3 shows diminished myosin kinetics that reduce muscle power and yield myofibrillar defects. Disease Models & Mechanisms 10(6):761-771.
