About Sonnet S. Jonker, PhD

I am a Professor of Medicine at Loma Linda University in the Lawrence D. Longo, MD Center for Perinatal Biology, where I lead a lab studying the developing cardiovascular system in a translational large animal model. I have published extensively on the proliferation and terminal differentiation of cardiac myocytes in the perinatal period, as well as coronary growth and function in the fetal and neonatal heart. The goal of my research is to discover how prenatal stress influences the structure and function of the heart for life, and to develop therapeutic approaches for infants with undergrown hearts and those with congenital defects.

I am interested in helping research institutions provide excellent animal care to investigators who use animals in basic, agricultural, and translational biomedical research. I served on the IACUC at Oregon Health & Science University for 16 years, have been involved with the American Physiological Society's Animal Care and Experimentation Committee since 2013, and have served AAALAC as an ad hoc consultant since 2016. I have also served since 2021 on the Board on Animal Health Science, Conservation, and Research (BAHSCR; formerly known as Institute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR) Council) of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM).