Dr. Joseph A Roche is a physical therapist by professional training. Dr. Joseph A Roche worked as a clinician and physical therapy instructor from 1998-2002. Dr. Joseph A Roche came to the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the Fall of 2002 to do his Ph.D. in Physical Rehabilitation Science. On completion of his Ph.D. in the Spring of 2008, Dr. Joseph A Roche joined the Department of Physiology as a post doctoral fellow, and became a research associate in 2011.

My doctoral and post-doctoral work was aimed at developing a better understanding of how healthy and dystrophic muscles recover from contraction-induced skeletal muscle injuries. Towards the end of my doctoral training, I began to focus on muscle diseases linked to dysferlin, which is mutated in patients with LGMD2B and Miyoshi myopathy. My work suggests that the protein dysferlin, which was intially thought to repair damaged plasma membranes in skeletal muscle fibers, might actually play a more critical role in maintaining the integrity of internal membrane systems in skeletal muscle. My current research is focused on understanding the events that lead to myofiber death in the absence dysferlin by studying the response of muscle to in vivo injury. His clinical speciality includes Exercise Physiology and Neuromuscular Disorders.