Experience

Defense and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine (DCIEM) 

 

Supervisor:  Dr. Bob Cheung (Department of Aerospace Life Support)

 

Project: Effects of sustained acceleration on human vestibulo-oculomotor responses.

 

This project involved investigating the performance of the smooth pursuit under sustained positive acceleration.  For high performance aircraft pilots, there ability to maintain their visual targeting is very important.  Therefore, because vision is profoundly affected by acceleration it would be important to determine what these effects are.  Using visual smooth pursuit as an indicator of visual performance (smooth pursuits purpose is to generate smooth eye movements that keep an image of a moving target from slipping across the retina), we found that there was a significant phase lag relative to the target as the subjects velocity increased.  One of the consequences of this significant phase lag relative to the target is retinal image slip, which in turn affects visual acuity, and thus a pilots ability to target objects during acceleration.  The significance of this work was to improve the understanding of the effects of sustained acceleration, felt when pilots perform high speed maneuvers, on the visual system.

 

Do you want to learn more about DCIEM?  Visit the DCIEM website (click here) or read more about these studies (click here)

 

 

University of Western Ontario                  

 

Supervisor: Dr. Stephen M. Sims (Department of Physiology)

 

Project:  Regulation of Ca²⁺-Dependent K⁺ Channels in Human smooth muscle cells.

 

Do you want to learn more about Dr. Sims (click here) or (click here)

 

 

University of Western Ontario               

 

Supervisor: Dr. Tim Zacharewski (Dept. of Pharmacology and Toxicology)

 

Project:  Development of a quantitative RT-PCR internal standard to assess murine Cytochrome P450-1A1 levels using site directed mutaqenesis.