Howard Allan Rockman, MD

Rockman Lab: Molecular Mechanisms of Hypertrophy and Heart Failure

Overall Research Direction: The major focus of this laboratory is to understand the molecular mechanisms of hypertrophy and heart failure. My laboratory uses a strategy that combines state of the art molecular techniques to generate transgenic and gene targeted mouse models, combined with sophisticated physiologic measures of in vivo cardiac function. In this manner, candidate molecules are either selectively overexpressed in the mouse heart or ablated by homologous recombination, which is followed by an in-depth analysis of the physiological phenotype. To model human cardiac disease, we have created several models of cardiac overload in the mouse using both microsurgical techniques and genetic models of cardiac dysfunction.

Areas of Research
1) Signaling: G protein-coupled receptor signaling in hypertrophy and heart failure focusing on the concept of biased signaling of 7 transmembrane receptors.

2) Molecular physiology: In depth physiological analysis of cardiac function in genetically altered mice to understand the role of G protein-coupled receptor signaling pathways on the development of heart failure in vivo.

3) Deletion screens in Drosophila: To detect novel genes important for cardiac function in the adult fly .