- Department
- Email Address
- [email protected]
- Research Areas
- Research Keywords
- Research Description
Professor John Dawson leads a research program that spans protein biochemistry, cardiovascular disease, and biology higher education. He studies how muscle proteins work together to produce movement and how mistakes in that movement can lead to diseases. In education, he researches how we teach and assess critical thinking in University science courses.
- Research Summary
Prof. Dawson studies the impact of inherited changes in heart muscle proteins to understand what is going wrong in patients with heart diseases so that we can develop specific strategies to treat the problem. His research takes the research from molecules to organisms, studying the biochemistry of proteins and the development and physiology of zebrafish with changes in their hearts reflecting those seen in people with diseases.
Prof. Dawson's education research focuses on learning outcome assessment in general and the development, implementation, and assessment of critical thinking through higher education science curricula in particular.- Techniques Used
Protein purification, regulated thin filament actomyosin ATPase assays, in vitro motility assays, protein-protein interactions, electron microscopy, zebrafish research, CRISPR / HDR, high resolution melting, in situ hybridization, immunohistology, ultrasound imaging, heart rate analysis, cardiac physiology measurements, rubrics, quantitative and qualitative education research methods.
- Lab Equipment
FPLC, anion and cation exchange chromatography, SEC, PCR, benchtop ultracentrifuge, Beckman spectrophotometer with 6 analytical cuvettes and heated transport, Cary 4-cell fluorimeter.
- Locations of international collaborators
Iowa, Baltimore, Chicago (USA).
- Links