The lab of Daniel A. Martin resides in the depths of the dental wing’s basement. I work underneath Barbara Smith, who is a graduate student and also my mentor as well as alongside Sara Attia, who is my undergraduate peer. I also work with Tseng Tien, who is another graduate student that isUnver a part of the Martin Lab.

As a lab, we are constantly focused on the use of muscle, which is what is pictured to the right of this paragraph. Specifically, I became acquainted with the use of the diaphragm muscle and the role of antagonist/agonistic muscle relationships. Barbara, Sara and I first encountered a diaphragm rat study that induced a load on the animal’s diaphragm by increasing tension on the animal’s trachea. As the animal experienced a difficulty in breathing, it had to breathe harder, thus working its diaphragm in order to get the same amount of air to its lungs. Sara delved further into this project this summer, examining the presence of satellite cells in these diaphragms and analysis of the presence. Satellite cells are typically used as a marker of muscle regeneration and thus we were looking to see if muscle was being created in the diaphragm by this traecheal loading. The trio of us also balanced Barbara’s main study, the effect of a training program on recent post-lung transplantation recipients. These patients participated in a 4 week training program incorporating strengthing and cardio exercises, and we tested various indicators of strength and endurance on these patients before, throughout and after the program ended. We tested his or hers one repetition maximum, 6 minute walk distance, as well as monitored his or hers heart rate and percent of oxygen consumption. Barbara focused on the patients’ quadriceps and hamstring as a representative of the patient’s total body strength which we measured with a Biodex Isokinetic Dynnamometer. The test was performed once before and after the training program.. Thus, we were able to compare and contrast our results. My project specifically addressed the hamstring to quadriceps ratio of these patients and the relevance behind this ratio. If you want to know more about my project, please click the link on my homepage!