Charles Starmer, PhD

Department:
Biostatistics and Bioinformatics

Email Address:
frank.starmer@duke.edu

Website:
http://www.gms.edu.sg/index.php?Our%20Faculty/Profiles/Starmer,%20C.%20Frank.html
http://frank.itlab.us

Address:
Box 2927
DUMC
Durham, NC 27710

Research Interests:
Though trained formally as an electrical engineer, I found myself starting my career in the Cardiology Division of the Department of Medicine.  My first research project was to explore the nature of electically induced ventricular fibrillation - an introduction to reentrant cardiac arrhythmias.  Though VF is complex, this work ignited my curioisity about the underlying nature of cellular communication - whether electrical via gap junctions or chemical via ligand-receptor interactions.  Along the way, I found myself developing the computational infrastructure for the Cardiology Databank, starting the Computer Science Department and eventually finding my way to the laboratory.  With my long term collaborator, Gus Grant, we explored single cardiac ion channels, drug interactions with cardiac ion channels and found ourselves facing my initial interests in reentrant cardiac arrhythmias, in this case, induced by drug-channel interactions.  The modeling of cardiac and neuronal action potentials resulted in identifying the determinants of the cardiac vulnerable period and today is referred to as computational biology.   Computational biology has the unique feature of providing a direct look at underlying modeled processes in contrast to laboratory investigations where much is hidden.  For me, identifying the physical basis of generic biological processes (e.g. excitation, propagation, ligand-receptor binding and transporters) via computational models is simply great fun.

Publications:
2005 -- Pubmed # 16477531 -- Carboni M, Zhang ZS, Neplioueva V, Starmer CF, Grant AO. Slow sodium channel inactivation and use-dependent block modulated by the same domain IV S6 residue. J Membr Biol. 2005 Sep;207(2):107-17.

2003 -- Pubmed # 12504817 -- Starmer CF, Colatsky TJ, Grant AO. What happens when cardiac Na channels lose their function? 1--numerical studies of the vulnerable period in tissue expressing mutant channels.  Cardiovasc Res.  2003 Jan;57(1):82-91.

1997 -- Starobin, J. M. and Starmer, C.F. A common mechanism links spiral wave meandering and wavefront-obstacle separation.  Phys Rev E 1997 55:1193-1197

1997 -- Starobin, J.M., Starmer, C.F. and Starobin, A.J. Boundary-layer analysis of spiral wave core: Spiral core radius.  Phys Rev E 1997 56:R3757-R3760

1995 -- Pubmed # 7634474 -- Starmer CF, Romashko DN, Reddy RS, Zilberter YI, Starobin J, Grant AO, Krinsky VI. Proarrhythmic response to potassium channel blockade. Numerical studies of polymorphic tachyarrhythmias.  Circulation.  1995 Aug 1;92(3):595-605.

1994 -- Gomez-Gesteira, M., Fernandez-Garcia, G., Munuzuri, A.P., Perez-Munuzuri, V., Krinsky, V.I., Starmer, C.F. and Perez-Villar, V. Vulnerability in excitable Belousov-Zhabotinsky medium: from 1D to 2D. Physica D 1994  76:359-368

1994 -- Starobin, J., Zilberter, Y.I. and Starmer, C.F. Vulnerability in one-diensional excitable media, Physica D 1994 70:321-341

1993 -- Pubmed # 8298011 -- Starmer CF, Biktashev VN, Romashko DN, Stepanov MR, Makarova ON, Krinsky VI. Vulnerability in an excitable medium: analytical and numerical studies of initiating unidirectional propagation. Biophys J. 1993 Nov;65(5):1775-87.

1992 -- Pubmed # 1314512 -- Starmer CF, Lancaster AR, Lastra AA, Grant AO. Cardiac instability amplified by use-dependent Na channel blockade. Am J Physiol. 1992 Apr;262(4 Pt 2):H1305-10.

1991 -- Pubmed # 1653123 -- Starmer CF, Lastra AA, Nesterenko VV, Grant AO. Proarrhythmic response to sodium channel blockade. Theoretical model and numerical experiments. Circulation. 1991 Sep;84(3):1364-77.

1990 -- Pubmed # 2242545 -- Colatsky TJ, Follmer CH, Starmer CF. Channel specificity in antiarrhythmic drug action. Mechanism of potassium channel block and its role in suppressing and aggravating cardiac arrhythmias. Circulation. 1990 Dec;82(6):2235-42.

1989 -- Pubmed # 2548763 -- Gilliam FR 3rd, Starmer CF, Grant AO. Blockade of rabbit atrial sodium channels by lidocaine. Characterization of continuous and frequency-dependent blocking. Circ Res. 1989 Sep;65(3):723-39.

1988 -- Pubmed # 2455546 -- Starmer CF. Characterizing activity-dependent processes with a piecewise exponential model. Biometrics. 1988 Jun;44(2):549-59.

1985 -- Pubmed # 2414642 -- Starmer CF, Grant AO. Phasic ion channel blockade. A kinetic model and parameter estimation procedure. Mol Pharmacol. 1985 Oct;28(4):348-56.

1983 -- Pubmed # 6315258 -- Grant AO, Starmer CF, Strauss HC. Unitary sodium channels in isolated cardiac myocytes of rabbit. Circ Res. 1983 Dec;53(6):823-9.

1975 -- Pubmed # 1156062 -- Rosati RA, McNeer JF, Starmer CF, Mittler BS, Morris JJ Jr, Wallace AG. A new information system for medical practice. Arch Intern Med. 1975 Aug;135(8):1017-24.

1973 -- Pubmed # 4353999 -- Sperling O, Wyngaarden JB, Starmer CF. The kinetics of intramolecular distribution of 15N in uric acid after administration of (15N) glycine. A reappraisal of the significance of preferential labeling of N-(3+9) of uric acid in primary gout. J Clin Invest. 1973 Oct;52(10):2468-85.

1973 -- Pubmed # 4718490 -- Starmer CF, Whalen RE. Current density and electrically induced ventricular fibrillation. Med Instrum. 1973 Mar-Apr;7(2):158-61.

1970 -- Pubmed # 4905082 -- Starmer CF, Clark DO. Computer computations of cardiac output using the gamma function. J Appl Physiol. 1970 Feb;28(2):219-20.

1969 -- Pubmed # 5824401 -- Grizzle JE, Starmer CF, Koch GG. Analysis of categorical data by linear models.  Biometrics.  1969 Sep;25(3):489-504.

1969 -- Pubmed # 5780199 -- Harley A, Starmer CF, Greenfield JC Jr. Pressure-flow studies in man. An evaluation of the duration of the phases of systole. J Clin Invest. 1969 May;48(5):895-905.

1966 -- Pubmed # 5908392 -- Starmer CF, Whalen RE, McIntosh HD. Determination of leakage currents in medical equipment. Am J Cardiol. 1966 Mar;17(3):437-8.

1964 -- Pubmed # 14215066 -- Starmer, CF, Whalen RE, McIntosh HD. Hazards of electric shock in cardiology.  Am J Cardiol.  1964 Oct;14:537-46.

1964 -- Pubmed # 14169969 -- Thompson HK Jr, Starmer CF, Whalen RE, McIntosh HD. Indicator transit time considered as a gamma variate.  Circ Res.  1964 Jun;14:502-15.