Establishment of a Muscle Assessment and Training Laboratory at Newcastle University

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Newcastle University were awarded #759K to establish a Muscle Assessment and Training Laboratory. The potential benefits of exercise in ageing, age-related disease and neuromuscular disease are much debated and there has been little progress in translating scientific advances into new treatments. Building on the recent successes in terms of MRC Centres and the NIHR Specialist Biomedical Centre, there is a real opportunity to develop protocols and training regimes that will have direct patient benefit within a short time frame. The initiative would also enable the University to link in with other centres internationally and become a focus of research within the UK.||The MRC Muscle Assessment and Training Laboratory would be central to the success of three major initiatives in Newcastle funded by the MRC and NIHR - Newcastle University Centre for Brain Ageing and Vitality sponsored by BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC and MRC (Director: Turnbull); MRC Centre for Translational Research in Neuromuscular Disease (co-PI in Newcastle: Turnbull) between Newcastle and London (UCL PI Hanna); NIHR Specialist Biomedical Research Centre for Ageing and Age-related Diseases (Director: Chinnery, Leader on Mitochondria strand; Turnbull).||Newcastle University Centre for Brain Ageing and Vitality sponsored by BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC and MRC is started in September 2008 and one of the main strands of this major new Centre is to understand the mechanisms by which exercise and diet influence vitality (and prevent frailty). Specifically this will be exploring the mechanisms involved in the protective effect of different forms of exercise on musculoskeletal ageing in terms of physiology, perfusion, mitochondrial function and muscle/joint pathology. This links in with a major initiative to understand the changes that occur in muscle with age and the causes of loss of muscle mass and strength. At least some of these changes are reversed by exercise, but key questions on the best form of exercise (resistance or endurance), whether limitations on the age at which this can be started, effects of such exercise on skeletal and joint ageing are still to be addressed. The MRC Muscle Assessment and Training Laboratory would provide a focus for this research and greatly enhance the Universitys ability to develop protocols which could then be applied widely in the community. This would also link in with related research being developed in the Centre for Brain Ageing and Vitality which is focused on understanding the ways older citizens interact with scientific knowledge about exercise and thus help ensure wide acceptance of best practice.|