Professor and Dean
E-Mail: slinker@vetmed.wsu.edu
Phone: (509) 335-6624
Department of
Veterinary Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology and Physiology (VCAPP)
Director,
Graduate Program in Neuroscience
College of Veterinary Medicine
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-6520
Dr. Bryan Slinker's research focuses on heart disease. Many forms of
heart disease result from a "remodeling" of the heart that occurs with
long-standing high blood pressure and following a heart attack. In
addition, many forms of heart disease are said to be "familial" because
they have a genetic basis and occur more frequently in certain families
(or within breeds of dogs, for example). One characteristic of all these
forms of heart disease is that the cells in the heart are able to sense
abnormalities in how the heart interacts with the rest of the body and
change their characteristics, or adapt, to try to change the hearts
ability to pump blood to the body. Much of how the cells do this sensing
is unknown. Similarly, much is unknown about how the cells modify the
characteristics of the heart after they sense an abnormality, such as
high blood pressure. Finally, much more work needs to be done to
understand how the changes in the heart cells that occur with disease
translate into decreased ability of the heart to pump blood.
Through the generosity of the National Institutes of Health and the
American Heart Association, Dr. Slinker's research has focused on how
the heart regulates its own pumping ability on a minute-to-minute basis,
and how this ability is changed in response to drugs that affect the
heart. Much of this work has been in collaboration with Dr. Ken
Campbell. More recently, Dr. Slinker has begun to study how the heart
responds to changes in the mechanical forces it faces these forces
result from blood pressure and the size and shape of the heart. This
line of study has led to collaboration with Dr. Joseph Harding.
Specifically, they study a hormone system discovered in Dr. Hardings
lab, called Angiotensin IV. This, and related hormones, are intimately
involved in controlling the changing character of the heart in disease.
In particular, they are interested in how these hormones influence cells
in the heart to secrete proteins that are important in the structure of
the connective tissue, which is "scaffold" that interconnects the cells
of the heart. Many forms of heart disease involve changes in this
scaffolding (sometimes much like scar formation in a cut in your skin)
that decrease the hearts ability to pump. Understanding how to reverse
these changes will potentially lead to new therapies for heart disease
in both humans and animals.
Biographical Brief
Bryan K. Slinker, Professor and Chair of VCAPP, received his B.S. in
Zoology from the College of Idaho in 1976, and his D.V.M. and Ph.D.
degrees from Washington State University in 1980 and 1982, respectively.
He completed 3-1/2 years of postdoctoral work at the Cardiovascular
Research Institute of the University of California, San Francisco. From
1986-1992, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine
(Cardiology Unit) at the University of Vermont.
Scholarly Publications
Dr. Slinker has more than 50 publications in books and scientific
journals, principally in the American Journal of Physiology, Circulation
Research, Cardiovascular Research, and Journal of Molecular and Cellular
Cardiology. Selected recent publications include:
Yang, Q, JM Hanesworth, JW Harding and
BK Slinker: The AT4 receptor
agonist [Nle1] - Angiotensin IV reduces mechanically induced
immediate-early gene expression in the isolated rabbit heart. Regul.
Pept. 71:175-183, 1997
Slinker, BK: The statistics of synergism. J. Mol. Cell. Cardiol.
30:723-731, 1998
Glantz SA and
BK Slinker: Primer of Applied Regression and Analysis of
Variance (2nd ed.). New York, McGraw-Hill, 2000 (
http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/AppliedRegression/)
Campbell, KB, MV Razumova, RD Kirkpatrick and
BK Slinker: Nonlinear
myofilament regulatory processes affect frequency-dependent muscle fiber
stiffness. Biophys J. 81:2278-96, 2001
Campbell, KB, M Chandra, RD Kirkpatrick,
BK Slinker and WC Hunter.
Interpreting cardiac muscle force-length dynamics using a novel
functional model. Am J Physiol 286:H1535-H1545, 2004.
Campbell KB, Y Wu, AM Simpson, RD Kirkpatrick, SG Shoff, HL Granzier and
BK Slinker. Dynamic myocardial contractile parameters from left
ventricular pressure-volume measurements. Am J Physiol 289:H114-H130,
2005.
PubMed Publications (Note: PubMed Search may produce additional
"Slinker" authors.)
