Education:
B. Sc. Biochemistry, University of Birmingham, UK, 1959
Ph.D. Biochemistry, University of Birmingham, UK, 1962
Post-doctoral positions: Cardiovascular Institute, UCSF, 1962-1964
Biochemistry Department, SUNY, Brooklyn, 1964-1965

Principal Academic Activities:
Major responsibilities are teaching and research. For the last five years the distribution of activities has been 90% research and 10% teaching. An additional and important component of these academic activities is the training of several post-doctoral fellows and graduate students. Teaching commitments are in the area of biochemistry, cell biology and physiology. Current teaching is NSC 510 Cell Signals.

Research Activities:
Our interests are on the regulatory mechanisms involved with motile events. The emphases being on the contractile cycle of smooth muscle. The latter is the muscular element of hollow organs and is found in arteries and veins, gastrointestinal tract, airways, uterus and vas deferens. Normal smooth muscle function is vital to the organism and altered function is associated with many disturbances, including high blood pressure and asthma. The principal mechanism in the regulation of the contractile apparatus in smooth muscle is phosphorylation of myosin. The level of myosin phosphorylation and hence contractile activity depends on the balance of two enzymes. One is the Ca2+ calmodulin-dependent myosin light chain kinase and its activity tracks the intracellular concentrations of Ca2+. The second enzyme is the myosin light chain phosphatase. Recently it has been shown that phosphatase activity can be regulated and one of our major objectives is to identify the mechanism of regulation and to determine how the phosphatase subunits are modified by regulation. Another aspect of our research is to extend the above objectives to motile non-muscle cells. The basic regulatory mechanisms of these cells are though to be similar to smooth muscle (rather than striated muscle). The cells that are studied by biochemical and morphological procedures include: human platelets; fibroblasts; primary cultures of smooth muscle cells; and cell lines from rat aorta (A10 and A7r5).

Invited Talks

 Talk in Vascular Biology.Group. Presented at University of Arizona Medical Center, 2001. 

Recognition:

Elected to membership of J.Biol.Chem. Editorial Board. Given by J.Biol Chem., 7/1/2001.

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