Kara Oberle joined the lab during the fall of 2006. She is a graduate of Kansas State University and worked as a lab technician for the guinea pig steroid project. Kara continued Robert Alexander's project. She studied the effects of prenatal steroids on the development of the diaphragm in guinea pigs.

 
Ryan Spragg also joined the lab in the fall of 2006. He studied the diaphragm of bottlenose dolphins to determine if the region of this muscle around the esophagus acts as a sphincter to prevent regurgitation at depth. He compared the fiber-type profile of this region of the diaphragm to the costal region to determine if there was an increased proportion of slow-twitch fibers around the esophagus. A high percentage of slow-twitch fibers is a characteristic of sphincters, which require the ability of these fibers to contract for long periods without fatigue.

Kent Thompson became a member of the Dearolf lab in the summer of 2006. Kent's project was a study of the effects of prenatal steroids on an expiratory muscle in guinea pigs, the rectus abdominus. He also presented his results at the 2007 SICB meeting. Click on the picture to read our abstract.