About Our Laboratory
The Developmental Physiology Laboratory is part of UNT's Developmental Integrative Biology Research Group. Our research program, currently funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Department of Defense (Navy), focuses on the developmental phenotypic plasticity exhibited by animals in their physiology, morphology and behavior. Our research answers broad, overarching questions involving the ontogeny and inheritance of physiological regulation, using a framework provided by the concepts of critical windows, developmental trajectories, epigenetics and fetal programming. Our Developmental Physiology Laboratory employs a wide variety of tractable animal models to understand how animals develop as they respond to both natural and anthropogenic environmental challenges.
The Developmental Physiology Laboratory is dependent upon the highly creative efforts of our lab members, research associates, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate and undergraduate students. In cooperation with the other participating labs in the Developmental Integrative Biology Research Group at UNT, and with a number of national and international collaborators, our lab members are exploring:
- developmental mechanisms for the physiological regulation of the cardiovascular, respiratory and renal systems in embryos, larvae and adults;
- how environmental disturbances modify normal developmental trajectories, amd whether developing physiologies can restore themselves to normal phenotypes;
- plasticity of critical windows for development of morphological and physiological features;
- transgenerational transfer (epigenetics and maternal effects) in cardio-respiratory structure and function;
- early interactions between physiological systems (especially the cardiovascular and renal systems) during development.