Dwinell, Melinda, Ph.D.
Professor of Physiology
Medical College of Wisconsin
8701 Watertown Plank Road
Milwaukee, WI 53226
Research Interests:
– high-throughput phenotyping, integration of phenotype data
– tools for disease model identification
– pulmonary diseases, neural control of breathing, development and aging
My major interest is to use the vast amount of phenotype data for the many rat models for disease to map disease traits to the genome. As more inbred rat strains are sequenced, we will be able to identify variation that results in a change in biological function which leads to the development of disease. Rat models for many diseases are available, but full phenotypic characterization of these strains would benefit the entire rat research community to better identify rat models used to characterize disease mechanisms. An additional benefit to integration of phenotype data and characterization of the strains is to provide a comprehensive snapshot of the commonly used strains since these strains are typically used as background strains in the development of gene knockouts.
