Titin: A Tunable Spring in Active Muscle

Dr. Nishikawa is Regents’ Professor of Biology at Northern Arizona University.

For the past 30 years, Dr. Nishikawa’s laboratory has investigated the contribution of muscle properties to biomechanics and neural control of movement.  Investigations in her laboratory range from biophysics of single titin molecules and myofibrils, to physiological studies of intact muscles from wild type and transgenic mice, to development and testing of bio-inspired control algorithms for wearable devices.

Recent lab projects include development of titin-based models for forward prediction of in vivo muscle forces during perturbed locomotion across a range of speeds and gaits in animals and humans, and inspiration for design of soft actuators and robots based on tunable viscoelastic properties of biological muscles.