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Muscle Group at Virginia Tech

Muscle

We are a group of faculty from HNFE, Animal & Poultry Sciences, and the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC who are dedicated to the research of muscle disease and function.


Virginia Tech HNFE


Rob Grange

Robert Grange, PhD
Associate Professor

Pathogenic mechanisms in Duchenne muscular dystrophy


Virginia Tech Animal and Poultry Sciences


Dave Gerrard

Dave Gerrard, PhD
Professor

Ongoing studies range from understanding the basic biochemistry involved in the transformation of muscle into meat, to applied studies involving technology transfer for monitoring fresh meat quality.  

Honglin Jiang

Honglin Jiang, PhD
Professor

Cellular and molecular mechanisms by which growth hormone and IGF-I regulate skeletal muscle, adipose tissue, and liver growth.  

Robert Rhoads

Robert Rhoads, PhD
Professor

Research mammalian growth and development with an emphasis on cellular and molecular mechanisms governing skeletal muscle size, regeneration, and metabolism.  

Hao Shi

Tim Shi, PhD
Research Assistant Professor

Sudies skeletal muscle growth and muscle stem cell homeostasis under normal physiological and metabolically perturbed conditions.

John Chappel

John Chappel, PhD
Associate Professor, Center for Heart and Regenerative Medicine Research

Studies how the blood vasculature develops during early organ formation and during certain diseases such as tumor progression and neurological disorders.

Robert Gourdie

Robert Gourdie, PhD

Director, Center for Heart and Regenerative Medicine Research

Researches the subunit proteins of gap junctions, which are called connexins (the channels that enable direct communication between cells).

Steven Poelzing

Steven Poelzing, PhD
Professor
Co-Director, Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health Graduate Program

Seeks to determine how pathological insults such as cardiac inflammation and edema modulate the risk of sudden death in the young and how age changes this relationship.

James Smythe

James Smyth, PhD
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences

Aims to understand mechanisms of cardiomyopathy at the subcellular level with the objective of identifying new targets for therapeutic interventions aimed at restoring normal cardiac function to diseased hearts.