Through the Interdisciplinary Training Program in Muscle Biology at the University of Maryland, I have gained extensive specialized training in muscle biology and in the study of the molecular and cell biology of muscular dystrophies. I have studied the composition and organization of the sarcolemma in normal healthy muscle and in several animal and human forms of muscular dystrophies. I and others have discovered that, depending on the primary mutations causing sarcolemmal defects in these diseases, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) and other muscular dystrophies can show unique reorganization of the sarcolemma and give clues about the molecular and structural changes that affect muscle health.  My primary focus and long term goal is to learn how molecular changes in muscles of patients with FSHD cause atrophy and progressive muscular dystrophy with the aim of learning how to reverse or alleviate the symptoms of the disease. I am currently working on a large scale 2-D gel proteomics study of muscles from patients with FSHD and their unaffected first degree relatives to learn how FSHD affects the global expression of proteins within the muscle tissue and to discover biomarkers of this disease. I am also studying how a protein, mu-crystallin, may inhibit formation and regeneration of skeletal muscle and how its effects can be prevented or reversed with the hopes of treating some forms of myopathies and muscular dystrophies.