Our research is centred on the mechanisms that organise the smallest contractile unit of striated muscle, the sarcomere, and how sarcomeres cross-talk to signalling mechanisms controlling muscle growth and protein turnover. Many diseases of the heart and skeletal muscles, including the genetic diseases like familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy result in disruptions of myofibril assembly and turnover. In most cases, the mechanisms that translate individual gene defects into a specific disease pattern are unclear. Identifying the basic biological functions of muscle disease genes is therefore a first step towards understanding, and eventually combating disease.

Molecular mechanisms of muscle disease, signal transduction in cardiac muscle sarcomeres.

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