As a student on the neuroscience NIH training grant, I entered the world of fly flight to investigate the role of calcium in regulating the stretch activation of the flight power muscles (IFMs). IFMs generate the highest mechanical power measured in any biological tissue. Each muscle fiber is a single giant syncytial cell, innervated by a single motor axon. In each cycle, contraction is activated by stretch, not by direct neural excitation.

Currently, there is no satisfactory explanation for how mechanical power is so well regulated in a muscle that is only loosely controlled by the CNS. I have genetically engineered a line of Drosophila to express a chimeric calcium-sensitive fluorescent protein in their IFMs. In vivo changes in calcium can be monitored with Fluorescent Resonance Energy Transfer techniques and then combined with muscle electrophysiological recordings and wing kinematic measurements. Similarly, calcium measurements from single fibers can be monitored with injectable calcium-sensitive dyes.