Samantha Harris, PhD 

The primary research interest of my lab is to understand the role of myosin binding protein-C (MyBPC) in the regulation of striated muscle contraction and how mutations in the 3 distinct genes encoding MyBP- C cause diseases in cardiac and skeletal muscles. To study MyBP-C my lab uses a wide variety of approaches ranging from single molecule biophysical and biochemical methods to whole animal models of disease. Methods include atomic force microscopy, biochemical binding and motility assays, ex vivo force measurements in permeabilized contracting muscle, and measurement of whole heart cardiac function in engineered rodent models of disease and in a naturally occurring feline model of HCM with a genetic mutation in cMyBP-C. More recently my lab has pioneered an entirely new approach (a patented “cut and paste” method) for replacing cMyBP-C in cardiac sarcomeres in situ in permeabilized myocytes from gene-edited “Spy-C3” mice.