Sarah Clippinger

Biography:

Sarah received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the Ohio State University and joined the Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis in 2016 as part of the Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology. Sarah is completing her thesis work in the lab of Dr. Michael Greenberg with her focus being the study of mutations in the protein troponin T which lead to familial cardiomyopathies. Troponin T is involved with the regulation of force production in heart muscle cells and the single mutations seen in patients usually result in either an increase or decrease in force production. Using techniques such as motility, stopped-flow, fluorescent titrations and optical trapping Sarah has determined how specific mutations affect the molecular mechanism of the actomyosin interaction.