The Holt Lab
Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology
UC Riverside

​Research in our lab is focused on skeletal muscle physiology. We want to understand the basic mechanisms of muscle contraction, determine how these affect muscle mechanics and energetics under conditions relevant to movement, explore how these shape animal morphology, physiology and behavior, and apply this understanding to clinical situations. We work at the cellular, tissue and organismal scale to determine how the hierarchical nature of muscle contributes to its performance, and to understand the implications of physiologically relevant conditions. We use, and are developing, techniques to measure muscle and organismal metabolic energy consumption to further our understanding of the link between locomotor mechanics and energetics. We both take a comparative approach and use disease models to further our understanding of basic mechanisms and implications of diversity and pathological changes.