Author: Michael Greenberg

Dr. Garg, a postdoc in the lab started a new position at Johns Hopkins and received a great score on his K08 grant from NHLBI!

Our latest publication is "Multiscale biophysical models of cardiomyopathies reveal complexities challenging existing dogmas". Here, we describe how experimental and computational biophysical tools are being harnessed to study cardiomyopathies and how they are revealing new insights into the disease pathogenesis that challenge existing models.  The article can be found here.

New article with Dr. Ankit Garg, "Assessing Cardiac Contractility From Single Molecules to Whole Hearts".  We describe how multiscale tools can be harnessed to reveal new insights into heart failure.  The article can be found here.

Dr. Ankit Garg won the Sobel Award for Basic and Translational Research.

This work, lead by first authors Sarah Clippinger-Schulte and Brent Scott, shows that regulatory proteins in cardiac muscle act via a steric blocking mechanism at physiological ATP concentrations. These proteins do not affect myosin's mechanics or load dependence. Interestingly, we see that regulatory proteins tune the kinetics of cardiac myosin's interactions with the thin filament at low, non-physiological ATP concentrations, suggesting biophysical mechanisms that cannot be explained using conventional models. The behavior of cardiac myosin interacting with regulated thin filaments is different from other regulated actomyosin systems where these proteins can tune myosin's mechanics and kinetics, highlighting the diverse roles of regulatory proteins in the cell. The paper can be found here.

[et_pb_section admin_label="section"] [et_pb_row admin_label="row"] [et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text"]The Greenberg lab has a new collaborative publication with the Geeves and Leinwand labs.  We examined mutations in the myosin MYH7b associated with hearing loss.  The paper includes optical trapping by Dr. Samantha Barrick using our new fast feedback system designed by Tom Stump.  Congratulations to all of the authors. The paper can be found here.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column] [/et_pb_row] [/et_pb_section]

Brent Scott was appointed to the Pediatric Cardiopulmonary T32.

In collaboration with the Lin and Stitziel labs, we applied our biophysical tools to study a de novo variant found in a patient with heart failure.  We show how these tools can be used to provide insights into the potential pathogenicity of rare variants and harnessed to identify potential precision medicine therapeutics.  The paper can be found here.

In collaboration with the Leinwand and Bowman labs, we show that the dynamics of myosin play a critical role in determining drug specificity.  The paper can be found here.  Congratulations to all of the authors.