WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Feb. 16, 2000 -- Williams College has announced that Steven J. Swoap, assistant professor of biology, has been awarded two grants in support of his research: $497,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and $95,783 from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Swoap will use his NSF award for a project whose objective it is to determine the mechanism of how restricting caloric intake lowers blood pressure and the NIH award to support research to determine why skeletal muscle becomes more fatiguable under disuse.

Swoap previously received an NSF grant in the amount of $228,000 to support his investigation into the genetic component of muscle fiber type adaptation.

His work has appeared in the American Journal of Physiology, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Plant Physiology.

Swoap came to Williams in 1996 after serving as post-doctoral fellow in the Division of Molecular Cardiology-Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas' Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

He has taught at Collin County Community College and Irvine Valley College.

He received his B.A. from Trinity University in biology and biophysics (1990), and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine in physiology and biophysics (1994).