Author Archives: Scientist

Thank you to Mary and Xana for organizing a Secret Santa. And welcome (back) to Evan, who’s joining the lab as a graduate student!

We are excited to have Evan come back to the lab, this time as a PhD student for a rotation!

We are stoked to share about the lab’s 1st publication on what gets the heart cells contracting and relaxing.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.03.680406v1

👉🏼In this work, we show that two proteins play see-saw to oversee a cell signaling pathway that’s important in heart function control. These results have implications for treating patients with a form of heart failure.

👉🏼👉🏼Phosphodiesterase type 1 regulates the pool of cAMP associated with adenosine 2A but not 2B receptor stimulation. This is important in heart contractility in both health and disease. Not all GPCRs are the same – even when they share so much by their names.

We are excited to have Lauren join the lab for a rotation! Cheers to new learning opportunities and findings and memories to be made in the lab.

It’s a busy season for us in the Muller Lab.

We kicked off the beginning of summer with the addition of Adilyn and Germaine, an undergraduate and an MD student.

They got to work from day 1, and have already saw the near completion of their first big experimental tasks.

Today, I remember the life of Will Jeffreys.

Will was the first undergraduate researcher whom I interviewed, hired, and trained while in Dr. David Kass’s lab as a postdoc. Will would go on to spend several more summers and two post-bachelor years working with another mentor in the lab. Will was a co-author on my 2021 publication. Will and I were also desk mates until I left in 2022 to start the Muller Lab at Loyola.

It’s hard to capture in words the loss I feel as someone who got to introduce Will to the world of research and pave the way for him to realize his dream of becoming a cardiologist one day. His loss hits me differently now as a non-novice mentor, and as a parent myself. As I’ve reflected on Will’s lightheartedness and being a figurative light for the lab, I am aware of how like a family the lab was. And sometimes sentiments like these are what stays with you…

Will is survived by his sister, parents, friends, labmates, and mentors. Will was enrolled at University of Maryland School of Medicine, class of 2028.

It’s an exciting day to host Prof. Manuela Zaccolo from Oxford University. Dr. Zaccolo is a mentor to Grace, and the very one whose work led to the whole field of compartmentalized cell signaling.

And huge shout out to Mary and Michael for presenting their work during lab meeting this morning with Professor Zaccolo.

We are excited to have Emily join the lab. Emily’s already contributed to lab’s first-ever -80 freezer thaw and we are looking forward to having her join the team!

-Franklin Plaza, 3/7/2025

We are so excited for Purvaj’s acceptance into medical school. Congratulations, and this means we are looking for a new technician! Read more about the position here, and inquire directly with Grace.