Office:	3550 Terrace Street
	Suite S 628 Scaife Hall
	Pittsburgh, PA 16261
Phone:	412-648-9354
Fax:	412-648-5991
E-mail:	salamag@upmc.edu

Education
	BS, City College of New York, 1970
	MS, University of Pennsylvania, 1972
	PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1977

Training
	Postdoctoral, University of Pennsylvania, 1979

A central goal of Dr. Salama's laboratory is to elucidate the mechanisms responsible for the initiation and termination of cardiac arrhythmias. To achieve this, they have developed the use of voltage-sensitive dyes and high temporal and spatial resolution optical techniques to map patterns of action potential (AP) propagation and repolarization. These novel methods are used to elucidate of the mechanisms that generate spatial heterogeneities of AP durations and the interplay between dispersion of repolarization (DOR) and anisotropic conduction velocities (CV). Animal models for cardiac arrhythmias include: acute ischemia in the guinea pig heart and 2 rabbit models of the long QT syndrome (LQTS). A number of mechanisms are being investigated as factors that promote arrhythmias in the LQTS: elevation of extracellular K+, sympathetic stimulation, and the role of spontaneous Ca2+ oscillation from the sarcoplasmic reticulum. Mapping spatial heterogeneities of intracellular Ca2+ transients in mammalian hearts using Ca2+ indicator dyes and imaging techniques. Once the normal heterogeneities of Ca2+ are determined, changes in Ca2+ transients will be analyzed in a wide range of physiological conditions to determined parameter that modulate Ca2+ transients. This laboratory has been at the forefront of the investigation of the role of sulfhydryl oxidation-reduction as a mechanisms to regulate Ca2+ release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). They are continuing this line of work in very exciting direction.

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Selected Publications: