Muscle Health Awareness Day features eight speakers for 12th annual event

A depiction of myofibrils, any of the elongated contractile threads found in striated muscle cells
The Muscle Health Research Centre (MHRC) at York University will host its 12th annual Muscle Health Awareness Day (MHAD12) online via Zoom on May 28 and will feature eight speakers from across the globe. The conference, organized by MHRC Director David Hood and Louise Solomon, centre coordinator, will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will include abstracts and presentations, in addition to the guest speakers.

The event is free to attend; however, registration is encouraged.

Confirmed distinguished invited speakers, and their topics of discussion, for this year’s event include:

  • Kristian Gundersen, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway – “Muscle memory. A feature of the syncytial muscle cell”
  • Matthijs Hesselink, Department of Nutrition and Movement Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands – presentation TBA
  • Helga Ellingsgaard, Centre for Physical Activity Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark – “Exercise-induced interleukin-6, a physiological regulator of adipose tissue masse in humans”
  • Philip Atherton, Metabolic & Molecular Physiology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom – “Testosterone and muscle hypertrophy regulation in young/old humans”
  • Katrien De Bock, Department of Health Sciences & Technology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland – “Endothelial cells control muscle regeneration through angiocrine lactate”
  • John Floras, Mount Sinai Hospital Division of Cardiology, Toronto, Canada – “Muscle sympathetic responses to acute exercise of patients with heart failure”
  • Jeffery Woods, Kinesiology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, U.S. – “Your microbes and exercise: Are microbes involved in endurance exercise adaptations?”
  • Melissa Spencer, Center for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, UCLA, California, U.S. – “CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing for Duchenne muscular dystrophy”

Learn more about our speakers by viewing the speaker profiles.

Submit an abstract

In addition to guest speakers, organizers invite abstracts from undergraduate students, master’s and PhD students, as well as post-doctoral Fellows on any topic related to muscle (skeletal, cardiac or smooth), exercise, health, disease, blood flow or metabolism. Submissions can include abstracts previously used within the last 12 months at any scientific meeting, or abstracts that are to be presented at upcoming meetings. There is no word count limit for these abstracts, however, they are typically in the 300 word count range. Please do not include any figures with an abstract.

Abstracts can be submitted as usual via the website, and all abstracts submitted on time will be published in the MHAD12 proceedings. A selection of 10 of these from both MSC and PhD categories, will be chosen for short oral presentations via Zoom. These selected abstracts will be awarded $200 poster prizes each.

To submit an abstract, fill out this form and return it by email to mhrc@yorku.ca in order to receive the ZOOM invitation to attend MHAD12. The deadline to submit is May 21 at 12 p.m. (noon) to be eligible for an award; however, abstracts can be submitted until May 24 at 12 p.m.

For more on abstract criteria, visit the event page.