Dwinell, Melinda, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Specialization: Physiological Genomics
Tel: (414) 456-4498 Dr. Dwinell's CV
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During the past seven years, I have been involved with the Phenotyping component, the Education component and, most recently, the Bioinformatics component of the PhysGen Program for Genomic Applications (http://pga.mcw.edu). To understand the genetic basis of fundamental mechanistic pathways of the heart, lung, kidney, blood and vasculature, PhysGen has developed two panels of consomic rat strains and ENU-induced mutant strains and physiologically characterized these unique animal models. Comprehensive characterization of the consomic strains allows for immediate mapping of traits to a particular chromosome without the need for genetic crosses. The genes targeted in the ENU strategy are genes thought to be involved in complex diseases of the heart, lung, blood, and vasculature. This strategy allows for the testing of the “functionality” of relevant genes.
My specific area of research has focused on the neurophysiological mechanisms controlling breathing during development. Maturation of the ventilatory control system takes place following birth, although the factors influencing the maturation remain under investigation. Our studies use different animal models to gain insight into the time-course of normal development of the ventilatory control system, as well as the effect of environmental and genetic influences on these changes during development.
My current focus is on establishing methods to integrate large phenotypic datasets, such as the PhysGen phenotyping data, with genomic databases such as the Rat Genome Database (http://rgd.mcw.edu). This integration will use standardized nomenclature to link the phenotypic data to the rat genomic sequence, allowing the user to query by gene ontology, phenotype ontology and disease pathway.
