Summary:

Maintaining healthy skeletal muscle mass and function is important for successful aging. Lifting weights (resistance training) and eating sufficient protein are two ways to promote muscle growth (hypertrophy). However, optimizing resistance training and nutrition is challenging because it is difficult to translate mechanistic biology knowledge into practical advice for individuals. An engineering approach to this challenge is to use mathematical models that take as input resistance training and feeding protocols and predict the resulting biological responses. In this talk, I will discuss two models for enhancing our understanding of skeletal muscle protein metabolism, the first being a kinetic model of leucine-mediated signaling and protein metabolism that we use to study anabolic resistance, and the second a model of muscle-fibre-specific mechanotransduction.