Barbara A. Block

Biosketch

Barbara Block is the Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Professor at Stanford University in the Departments of Biology and Oceans. She earned her BA in Zoology from University of Vermont and her PhD from Duke University. She was a postdoctoral fellow in Biology and Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania. Block joined the Department of Organismal Biology & Anatomy at the University of Chicago in 1989 and moved to Stanford University in 1994. Block discovered how skeletal muscle non-shivering thermogenesis plays an important role in the evolution of endothermy in vertebrates. Her studies of tunas, billfishes and sharks range from a whole organism to genome perspective with a specialized interests in endothermy, cardiac physiology, energy metabolism, tuna biomechanics and thermal acclimation. Block has pioneered the development and deployment of electronic tags that provide data on location, diving behavior, cardiac function and thermal physiology of tunas, billfishes and sharks. Dr. Block co-founded the Tuna Research and Conservation Center the only facility in North America holding tunas for captive research. The combination of lab and field research has led to a rapid increase in the understanding of movement patterns, population structure, physiology and behaviors of pelagic fish and sharks. Awards include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Rolex Award for Enterprise, the Pew Marine Fellowship and the Benchley Award for Ocean Science. She is a fellow of the American Physiological Society and a member of The Oceanographic Society.

Research Interests

Dr. Block’s research explores the organismal, cellular and molecular physiology of endothermy, thermogenesis and cardiac function in highly migratory fishes such as tunas, sharks and billfishes. Her work investigates the intersection of organismal metabolism, muscle physiology, locomotion, movement ecology and environmental fitness. She has pioneered the development and deployment of electronic tags on fish and sharks that log their movements, energetics and thermal physiology at the scale of ocean basins. These data on abundance and distribution of animals in a variable ocean environment are essential for designing ecosystem based management plans in pelagic, coastal and shelf habitats. The integration of lab and field research has led to a rapid increase in the understanding of movement patterns, population structure, physiology and behavior of tunas, marlin, swordfish and sharks. Block has also explored the molecular mechanisms by which tricylic PAHs such as phenathranene induce cardiac toxicity in vertebrates as well as excitation contraction coupling and excitation-thermogenic coupling in skeletal muscle. Her focus has been to better understand the role of calcium release and re-sequestration by the ryanodine receptor, calcium ATPase pump and mitochondria in skeletal and cardiac muscle function of vertebrates.