Physiology and Pharmacology

Research

• Cardiovascular Research
• Cell Biology Research
• Neuroscience Research
• Teaching Development Research Group
• Postgraduates
• All Research Groups

 

External Groups

• AIMS Centre/CETL
• Bristol Heart Institute
• Bristol Neuroscience
• Microvascular Research Laboratories (MVRL)
• MRC Centre for Synaptic Plasticity

David Woolley

 

Research

My research is directed towards understading the mechanics of flagellar motility. How are the forces produced ? How does the flagellum (axoneme) produce its cyclical beat ? Recent and current investigations include:

• The discovery of hydrodynamic explanations for the motility of spermatozoa at surfaces.
• The use of an inner-dynein-arm-knockout mouse to locate a specific heavy chain in the mouse sperm flagellum; the proposal of a developmental explanation for the severely weakened motility.
  
• The new finding that basal sliding does occur in mammalian spermatozoa; the related finding that propagating bends cannot transmit sliding. Implications for the oscillation and its maintenance by elastically stored energy.
• The instantaneous fixation of basal bodies in a search for shear strains. 

Group Members

• Debbie Carter
  Technician

Selected Publications

• Woolley, D.M., Carter, D.A. and Tilly, G.N. (2008)
  Compliance in the neck structures of guinea pig spermatozoa, as indicated by rapid freezing and electron microscopy.
  Journal of Anatomy, in press.
  
• Woolley, D.M. (2007)
  A novel motility pattern in quail spermatozoa with implications for the mechanism of flagellar beating.
  Biology of the Cell 99, 663-675.
  
• Woolley, D., Gadelha, C. and Gull, K. (2006)
  Evidence for a sliding-resistance at the tip of the trypanosome flagellum.
  Cell Motilty and the Cytoskeleton 63: 741-746.
  
• Vernon, G.G., Neeson, J. and Woolley, D.M. (2005)
  Further Studies on Knockout Mice Lacking a Functional Dynein Heavy Chain (MCHC7)-
  Cell Motility & the Cytoskeleton 61: 65-73
  
• Vernon, G.G., Neeson, J. and Woolley, D.M. (2005)
  Further studies on knockout mice lacking a functional dynein heavy chain (MDHC7)-
  Cell Motility & the Cytoskeleton 61: 74-82
  
• Vernon, G.G. and Woolley, D.M. (2004)
  Basal sliding and the mechanics of oscillation in a mammalian sperm flagellum.
  Biophysics Journal 87: 3934-3944
  
• Woolley, D.M. (2003)
  Motility of spermatozoa at surfaces.
  Reproduction 126:259-270

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