The Lab

Skeletal muscle is the main motor of locomotion, the largest organ in the body, and a crucial contributor to whole body metabolic homeostasis. It displays remarkable metabolic, functional, and structural plasticity in response to altered nutrient availability, altered mechanical load or damage. For instance, successful plasticity is underlying the stark increase in endurance performance and force production upon regular exercise training, as well as the robust capacity for regeneration that enables full functional tissue recovery, even after repetitive injury. In contrast, loss of muscle plasticity contributes to the pathological progression of many diseases. Indeed, insulin resistance in skeletal muscle is one of the main features underlying glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes, while the inability to maintain muscle mass and function strongly predicts morbidity and mortality during aging, cancer as well as cardiovascular diseases such as peripheral artery disease. Maintaining muscle function is therefore essential for maintaining overall health. Yet, despite this knowledge, very few therapeutic approaches exploit this notion. This is mainly because the exact mechanisms by which muscle adapts to training, repairs after damage, andbecomes dysfunctional in diseased conditions are still incompletely understood.

One potential explanation for this knowledge gap is the lack of insight into the role of the skeletal muscle microenvironment in maintaining or restoring muscle homeostasis. Decades of research within the field have primarily focused on unraveling the molecular mechanisms that coordinate how myofibers (and their stem cells) adapt to training and contribute to disease. For good reasons, because the myofibers constitute most of the muscle mass, they are the `executor` cells that generate contractile force and take up most of the glucose for metabolic control. Nevertheless, non-myofibers also play an important role in maintaining and restoring muscle homeostasis. The Laboratory of Exercise and Health focuses on studying how cellular and metabolic crosstalk within the muscle microenvironment contributes to the maintenance and restoration of muscle homeostasis. A particular interest goes to studying the contribution of the vasculature, either as the main delivery route for oxygen and nutrients to the muscle or as an instructive niche that actively interacts with other cells, to muscle health.