The Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center (AIMRC) will host Brian Glancy, a senior investigator in the Muscle Energetics Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, at 10:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, in BELL 2267. Glancy's research explores how mitochondrial and contractile networks are optimized within muscle cells to maintain energy balance during the sharp increase in demand that occurs with muscle contraction.

Abstract: Skeletal muscle is the most abundant tissue in humans and faces near-instantaneous changes in demand for force production lasting from seconds to minutes to hours. Initiating and maintaining muscle contraction requires rapid, coordinated movement of signals and material within and among various structures located throughout the relatively large muscle cell. This seminar will focus on how energy is distributed throughout striated muscle cells to sustain muscle contractions, deficits in which have been implicated in many pathologies, including diabetes and muscular dystrophy, as well as aging. In particular, Glancy will discuss how the structure and function of the cellular energy distribution system are optimized as part of the integrated muscle cell to maintain energy homeostasis during the large changes in energy demand caused by the onset of muscle contraction.

Biography: Glancy graduated with a B.A. in sport science from the University of the Pacific prior to receiving a master's degree in kinesiology and a Ph.D. in exercise science from Arizona State University, working with Wayne Willis. He was a postdoctoral fellow with Robert Balaban at NHLBI from 2009 to 2016. Glancy became an Earl Stadtman Investigator at the NIH with a dual appointment between NHLBI and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases in 2016 and became a tenured Senior Investigator in 2023. He is a member of the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Physiological Society.

This event is supported by NIGMS of the National Institutes of Health under award number P20GM139768. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Please contact Kimberley Fuller, fullerk@uark.edu, for more information.

For those unable to attend in person, this seminar will also be available via Zoom.