RESEARCH FIELDS
Integrative/Environmental Animal Physiology, focussing on the mechanisms of adaptations to exogenous and endogenous factors (oxygen and water availability, temperature, hydrostatic pressure, activity, hibernation, estivation etc.) manifested at the cellular, molecular and systemic levels of biological organization.
Gas transport and tissue oxygen supply, focussing on the functional and molecular adaptations of gas binding proteins (hemoglobin, myoglobin, hemocyanin and the recently discovered neuroglobin, cytoglobin and globin X) and their allosteric and thermodynamic transitions.
Specific projects (with names of collaborating partners in brackets) include:
- Functional characterization of (genetically-retrieved and resurrected) hemoglobins of extinct mammals, e.g. woolly mammoth (Kevin Campbell, Winnipeg; Alan Cooper, Adelaide; Chien Ho, Pittsburg; Jeremy Tame, Yokohama, et. al.)
- Genetics and physiology of hemoglobin function in high-altitude deer mice (Jay Storz, Lincoln NE; Angela Fago, Aarhus; Hideaki Moriyama, Lincoln NE)
- Hypoxic-hypercapnic adaptations in fossorial moles (Kevin Campbell & Jörg Stetefeld, Winnipeg; Joe Bonaventura, Beaufort, NC)
- Structure-function adaptations in crocodilian hemoglobins (Thomas Gore, Zurich)
- Physiological roles of vertebrate cytoglobins, neuroglobins and structurally-similar invertebrate nerve hemoglobins (Thorsten Burmester and Thomas Hankeln, Mainz, Luc Moens and Sylvia Dewilde, Antwerp, Michael Marden, Paris and Angela Fago and Hans Malte, Aarhus)
- Hemoglobin multiplicity and function in sub-Saharan mole-rats (Nigel Bennett, Pretoria)
- Strategies for life-long adaptation to hypoxia in Lake Victoria cichlid fishes (Carlo Rutjes and Guido van den Thillart, Leiden)
- Blood oxygen transport during exercise (Heimo Mairbäurl, Heidelberg)
- Thermodynamics of cofactor binding to crustacean hemocyanin (Jane Behrens, Copenhagen, Hans Malte, Christian Damsgaard and Angela Fago, Aarhus)
