A recent initiative is an American Heart Association funded project to study the molecular basis of the Frank-Starling law of the heart, a collaboration with Prof. P. DeTombe, University of Illinois at Chicago. Another ongoing project is studies of insect flight muscle from living normal and mutant fruit flies during tethered flight, a collaboration with Dr. D. Maughan, University of Vermont. The goal of the latter project is to study the role of myosin light chain extensions on contractility. Emerging areas of interest are in diffraction studies of connective tissues. Recent results taken in collaboration with Rush University indicate that X-ray fiber studies of cartialge may be a useful tool to study molecular mechanisms of disease progression in osteoarthritis Representative Publications T.C. Irving, J. Konhilas, D. Perry, R. Fischetti, and P.P. deTombe.
Lattice spacings in skinned rat trabeculae as a function of sarcomere length in rat myocardium.
J. of Physiol. T.C. Irving, R. Fischetti, G. Rosenbaum, and G. B. Bunker. Using the BioCAT Undulator Beamline at the Advanced Photon Source. T.C. Irving and D. W. Maughan. In vivo x-ray diffraction of indirect flight muscle from Drosophila melanogaster.