Rachel Rein (Brooding Bonnie) joined the lab in the spring of 2006. She studied the diaphragm of common dolphins ( Delphinus delphis) to determine if a number of morphological characteristics correlated with the breathing behaviors of this species. She used histochemical techniques to investigate the fiber-type profile of this muscle in the spring, and in the summer of 2006, she applied antibodies to the various myosin heavy chains to subtype the fast-twitch fibers. The antibody staining showed that the majority of the fast-twitch fibers in the common dolphin diaphragm are type IIA, fast-twitch oxidative glycolytic. A small subset of the fast-twitch fibers did not stain with the type IIA antibody, so these fibers may be IIX (fast-twitch intermediate oxidative glycolytic) or IIB (fast-twitch glycolytic).

Robert Alexander (Tommy Two-Fingers) started his work in the Dearolf lab in the Fall of 2005. He spent the spring semester of 2006 in England and returned to the lab in the summer of 2006. Robert studied the effects of prenatal steroids on the development of the diaphragm muscle in guinea pigs. His work has shown that the majority of the muscle fibers (88%) in both the control and treated fetal diaphragms express fetal myosin and would be classified as undifferentiated by the myosin ATPase assay. Neither the sizes of the muscle fibers or the fiber-type profiles of the control and treated muscles differed. His results have led us to change our steroid injection protocol.

Kent Thompson (The Dissector) became a member of the Dearolf lab in the summer of 2006, and he continued his work in the lab in the fall of that year. Kent's project was a study of the effects of prenatal steroids on an expiratory muscle, the rectus abdominus, in the guinea pig. He spent most of the summer learning techniques in the lab and keeping us supplied with type I water. Click on his picture to be linked to his fall project.

Mallory McCormick (Slappy Sue) also joined the lab in the summer of 2006. Her project was a study of how the development of the guinea pig rectus thoracis muscle is affected by prenatal steroids. During the summer of 2006, she became an expert at washing and setting up the glass plates for SDS-polyacrylamide gels. She came back to the lab in the spring of 2007 to complete her work.

Alissa Hellie (Partial Vivian) joined the lab in the spring of 2005 and her work continued into the fall of 2006. Her project was a study of the scalenus muscle in guinea pigs and the effects of prenatal steroids on its development. Click on her pic to be linked to her fall project.