AIMRC Seminar: Skeletal Muscle-Specific Roles for an Oncogene in Exercise Adaptation

The Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center (AIMRC) will host Dr. Kevin Murach, an associate professor of exercise, at 12:55 p.m. on Wednesday, April 29, in CHEM 0144. Murach's research explores how skeletal muscle adapts to exercise, with particular emphasis on the transcription factor MYC and its role in muscle growth, aging and metabolic health.

Abstract: In skeletal muscle, exercise activates a variety of transcription factors that contribute to adaptation in muscle fibers. Much focus has been paid to myogenic (muscle-enriched) transcription factors; however, a wide array of other transcription factors are also activated in muscle fibers with exercise. The roles of these other (non-myogenic) transcription factors are less well known. Murach's laboratory has shown that the oncogene MYC is among the most influential transcription factors driving the transcriptional response to resistance exercise in human and murine skeletal muscle. This seminar will dive into the biology of MYC in skeletal muscle fibers and its role in exercise adaptation. Murach will discuss his lab's use of murine exercise models, muscle-specific temporally inducible mouse models, multi-omics, histology, cell culture and computation to reveal the roles of MYC in adult muscle fibers.

Biography: Murach received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, completed a master's degree in exercise physiology at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and then earned his Ph.D. in human bioenergetics from the Ball State Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. His dissertation was a collaboration with NASA aimed at optimizing the exercise prescription for astronauts on the International Space Station. Murach spent six years as a post-doctoral fellow/scholar studying muscle stem cells at the University of Kentucky Center for Muscle Biology in Lexington. Murach is an associate professor of exercise science. He has been awarded an NIH R00, an American Federation for Aging Research Junior Investigator Award (<10 awarded per year), an NIH R01, an NIH K02 and funding from the World Anti-Doping Agency as principal investigator. As a postdoc, he received an NIH F32 postdoctoral fellowship and an NIH K99. He studies the biology of muscle aging and the effects of exercise.

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.

Pizza and beverages will be served. 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.