Muscle Health Awareness Day highlights new discoveries in muscle adaptation, development, metabolism and disease

The sixth annual Muscle Health Awareness Day will continue its tradition of highlighting the latest research and discoveries by scientists working in the field. The event includes a series of lectures and graduate student poster presentations related to muscle adaptation, development, metabolism and disease.

A distinguished group of researchers from Ontario universities and research institutions will be attending Muscle Health Awareness Day where they will present their work.  The 2015 Muscle Health Awareness Day will be held Friday, May 22, from 9am to 4:30pm, in the Rotunda and Lecture Hall A in Vari Hall, Keele campus. Registration is $20 for faculty and students. Registration includes a light breakfast, buffet lunch and coffee.

Presenting from York University is Robert Tsushima, professor and the associate dean of research and partnerships in the Faculty of Science. Tsushima will profile his research examining the properties and regulation of ion channels and the role of SNARE proteins in cardiac and pancreatic tissues. He will also speak about the mechanisms that modulate myocardial ischemic preconditioning protection, in the context of heart disease and diabetes.

Motivated by the need to generate alternative therapeutic avenues to treat cardiovascular diseases, Sara Nunes, assistant scientist in the Division of Experimental Therapeutics at the Toronto General Research Institute, and an assistant professor at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, will discuss her research in the development of vascularization strategies in combination with human stem cells for regenerative medicine.

John Dawson, professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Guelph, will offer an overview of his current work, which focuses on the control actin polymerization and elucidating the biochemical links between mutations in actin and the development of cardiac disease.

 

Paul LeBlanc, an associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences, and the director of the Centre for Bone and Muscle Health at Brock University, will outline his research interests in examining the adaptation associated with diet and exercise, and how these impact the composition of skeletal muscle membranes (fatty acids and cholesterols) and the function of proteins contained within them.

McMaster University kinesiology Professor Stuart Phillips, director of the McMaster Centre for Nutrition, Exercise and Health Research, will present his work, which focuses on the mechanisms regulating skeletal muscle mass, quality and metabolic activity, in the context of resistance and/or aerobic training, disuse and aging. Phillips is also interested in the relationship between feeding different protein compositions and meal timing, and how this modulates the response to exercise.

Jean-Marc Renaud, professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and a member of the Neuromuscular Research Centre at the University of Ottawa, will discuss his work on the regulation of muscle contractility during exercise and fatigue, with specific focus on muscle membrane excitability and the regulation/activity of the membrane channels which govern this.

Robert Ross's research focuses on the characterization and management of obesity and related co-morbidities in adults. He will discuss the effectiveness of lifestyle based intervention designed to manage these disease states. Ross is a professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University.

Julie St-Pierre is an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Centre located at McGill University. The aims of her research are to understand the regulation of mitochondrial metabolism under physiological and pathological conditions using metabolic profiling and global gene expression analyses.

Simon Wing is a professor in the Department of Medicine and the program director for the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. He will discuss his research, which is focused on the role of the ubiquitin-proteasome system in skeletal muscle protein degradation and the identification of key enzymes in this system that could be pharmacologically targeted to mitigate muscle wasting.

For updates and more information, visit the Muscle Health Research Centre website or email mhrc@yorku.ca.