Graduate Programs in the Life Sciences

Research Focus

• Development of vertebrate craniofacial muscles, blood vessels, and skeletal tissues, with particular emphasis on the interactions between precursor populations that may be important to the initiation and progression of cell differentiation and the morphogenesis of musculoskeletal complexes

• Myogenesis
• Identified the specific sites of origin of each muscle in the head and neck of the chick embryo
• Catalogued the time of activation of several key myogenesis regulatory genes
• Defined the time and locations of fast and slow myosin heavy chain synthesis for each head muscle