My research interests lie in two areas: development and repair of skeletal muscle and innovative techniques to enhance deep student learning in the anatomical sciences. In the developing embryo, muscle precursor cells, or myoblasts, develop from the somites (regions of embryonic mesoderm arranged segmentally along the length of the embryo). Some of these myoblasts will form the skeletal muscles of the axial skeleton (vertebral column, head, neck and trunk) while others will form the muscles of the appendicular skeleton (limbs).

A number of influencing factors guide the myoblasts destined to become limb muscles on a long and precise journey of migration from the somites where they developed, to their final destination in the limb. Once there, the myoblasts will elongate and form aligned groups before they fuse to form myotubes. It is these myotubes that will become the muscles that move the joints of our limbs. As the cells pass through this developmental process, there is a change in the organisation of their actin and myosin "cytoskeleton".

My interests lie in the organisation and interaction of these cytoskeletal components to determine how they are involved in the control of normal muscle development.