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Dr. Jenn Dearolf
I have a longstanding interest in vertebrate biology, specifically how mammals, both neonates and adults, interact with their environment. One of the main ways that animals engage their surroundings is through movement. Movement, in turn, is accomplished through the interaction of muscles with an animal's skeletal system, and thus, I have chosen to study muscle biology.
Currently, the work in my lab is focused on breathing muscles. We are studying the construction of the diaphragm and scalenus muscles in cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) to determine how these muscles power the explosive breathing of cetaceans and also allow these animals to breath-hold dive. The other studies in the lab are investigations of the effects of prenatal steroids on breathing muscle development in guinea pigs. Characteristics that we are investigating include: fiber-type profiles (percent slow- and fast-twitch fibers), fiber diameters, oxidative enzyme activities, myoglobin concentrations, and myosin heavy and light chain protein expression. In addition, we are beginning physiological testing studies to determine the functional effects of prenatal steroids on the treated breathing muscles.
Lab Happenings 
- Macrina Butler won the Best Student Poster Presentation in the Division of Vertebrate Morphology at the 2012 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Meeting!
- I received an INBRE Competitive Equipment Award to purchase a microplate reader and an ultracold freezer!
- I was also awarded a Hendrix Faculty Project Grant to travel to Belize Marine TREC in June in preparation for taking my Marine Biology class in the Spring of 2013!
Upcoming Events
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Associate Professor
Biology Department
DW Reynolds 230
501-450-4530
dearolf@hendrix.edu
Nature, they say, has caused the
Dolphin to be in perpetual motion,
and for the Dolphin, motion ends
with the end of life
Aelian
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