Martin A. Kapper

Research Interests:

Research projects in my lab currently involve an examination of the cellular, molecular and biochemical mechanisms that intertidal invertebrates use to adapt to the environmental stresses imposed by their constantly changing environment. The primary focus has been studying the mechanisms of adaptation to changing salinities. Major avenues have included determining the subcellular distribution and kinetics of key enzymes involved in free amino acid synthesis during high salinity adaptation, determining whether synthesis of molecular chaperone proteins in the hsp family is induces during adaptation to altered environmental salinity, and most recently, examining whether or not water permeability of cell membranes is altered during salinity adaptation by inserting water pore proteins (aquaporins) into cell membranes.