Dr Keith Baar

Dr Keith Baar received his Bachelor’s in Kinesiology from the University of Michigan where he also served as an Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach with the University of Michigan Football team. He then received a Master’s from the University of California, Berkeley and his Ph.D from the University of Illinois in the laboratory of Dr. Karyn Esser. He did his postdoctoral studies on the molecular mechanism underlying the muscular adaptation to endurance exercise under the direction of Dr. John O. Holloszy at Washington Univ. in St. Louis. Keith is currently the head of the Functional Molecular Biology Laboratory (FMBL) in the Division of Molecular Physiology at the University of Dundee.
Keith’s research is focused on determining the molecular mechanisms underlying the physiological and functional adaptations of muscle to exercise. In this area Keith has made two seminal discoveries. First, he and his colleagues found a protein whose activity following a bout of resistance exercise correlates with muscle hypertrophy following 6 weeks of training. This suggested for the first time that this protein, the mammalian target of rapamycin, was involved in the exercise-induced increase in skeletal muscle mass and provided a potential target for nutritional and genetic interventions to increase muscle mass. The second discovery was that endurance exercise increased the levels and activity of a master regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis. By showing that this protein increased following exercise and that this was important in the development of endurance, he and his colleagues were able to provide a molecular mechanism connecting endurance exercise to mitochondrial biogenesis. To delve deeper into the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of exercise, Keith’s lab is currently engineering muscle tissue outside the body with a particular interest in applying this model towards understanding muscle physiology and function. His recent work has used this model to show that the physiologic differences between fast and slow muscles can be retained in muscles engineered in vitro and has also used bioreactors to alter muscle phenotype using different patterns of electrical stimulation. He is now using these techniques to study the effect of genetic manipulation on muscle function.

Liz Broad

Dr Liz Broad has 14 years experience as a sports dietitian, and has worked with a wide range of athletes in both Australia and Scotland. Liz was the Berrivale Nutrition Fellow at the Australian Institute of Sport in 1994, and was fortunate to follow this with 3 more years at the AIS, culminating in the position of Acting Head of Nutrition Department in 1997. At the same time she completed her Masters, focusing on the effects of heat and cooling on wheelchair shooters. From 1998-2000, she was the Sports Science / Medicine Coordinator for Australian Canoeing, covering both flatwater and slalom canoe programs. In late 2000, Liz moved to Scotland where she worked as a sports nutrition consultant to the Scottish Institute of Sport (primarily judo), Scottish rugby and other Scottish sports (including tennis, canoeing, triathlon) whilst undertaking her PhD at the University of Stirling in the area of L-Carnitine supplementation in endurance exercise. Since moving back to Australia in 2005, she has developed an eclectic range of work, including sports dietitian for Qld Rugby Union, AIS flatwater kayak (and again as their SSSM coordinator), Australian Equestrian Federation, Paralympic Powerlifters, and the local gymnastics squad in Qld as well as seeing a wide range of sports people in her private practice. Liz also teaches in sports nutrition and in biochemistry of exercise at local Universities. She has traveled extensively to international tournaments with a variety of sports as sports dietitian (womens football, triathlon, flatwater canoe / kayak, water polo), technical operations coordinator (Sydney 2000 Games – canoe slalom) and as team manager (womens football, slalom canoe).  Liz has contributed to a number of sports nutrition resources, including text books as well as booklets and articles for athletes. 

Bret Goodpaster

Dr Bret Goodpaster has just been promoted to an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism.  He serves as the Director of the Exercise Physiology Laboratory and Core Co-Director of the Metabolism Core of the Pittsburgh Obesity and Nutrition Research Center (there are only four of these Center Grants in the US). Dr. Goodpaster has gained national and international prominence in the clinical investigation of obesity and aging, specifically the effects of exercise and diet-induced weight loss on mechanisms of skeletal muscle insulin resistance.
Dr. Goodpaster currently holds independent R-01, a highly competitive American Diabetes Association Clinical Research Award (an R-01 equivalent), serves as PI of Cores on exercise physiology body composition, skeletal muscle histology and biochemical analysis in two external on two different NIH grants, and a Core Director or collaborator in at least two other NIH grants or program projects. He has more than 75 peer-reviewed papers and more than 15 book chapters and review articles.
He is currently on the editorial Boards for both Diabetes and Journal of Gerontology, the top journals in diabetes and aging research, respectively. Bret has been invited to be a symposium speaker at the Annual Meeting of the American Diabetes Association on multiple occasions, at the NIH, and on several occasions at excellent medical schools in the US (Columbia, U Oregon, U Colorado, Yale, Tufts), all of which are national hotbeds of obesity, diabetes and exercise research.  He has been invited to become a member of a study section at both the NIH and the American Diabetes Association and has been asked to organize a symposium at the American Geriatrics Society Annual Meeting. In addition, he was recently honored to act as the American College of Sports Medicine’s representative to speak at the European Congress of Sport Sciences meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. Most recently, Dr. Goodpaster has been invited to talk about the role of mitochondria within a symposium on age-related fatigue at the National Institutes on Aging (NIH). Bret is a keen cyclist and has been riding many of the cols in the Tour de France himself.

Dr Shona Halson

Dr Shona Halson is a Senior Physiologist at the Australian Institute of Sport, where her role is both as a research scientist and a service provider to elite athletes. Shona completed her PhD through Queensland University of Technology and The University of Birmingham in the UK. The focus of her previous research has been examining the mechanisms of overtraining from a variety of sources including; hormonal and neural alterations, glycogen depletion, mood disturbance and performance. Her current research focuses on examining various strategies to enhance recovery and increase performance in elite athletes. She has been awarded both the American College of Sports Medicine and European Journal of Sport Science Young Investigator Awards.

Asker Jeukendrup

Asker Jeukendrup is a professor of Exercise Metabolism at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences and Director of the Human Performance Laboratory. Originally from the Netherlands, Asker lived and worked in Austin Texas (University of Texas) for a year and moved to Birmingham in the United Kingdom in 1998.
Asker and his coworkers have performed cutting edge research into the effects of nutrition on exercise performance, recovery and training adaptations. Asker has published extensively (more than 120 papers and book chapters) on the links between nutrition, exercise metabolism and performance. He has also written books on Sport Nutrition and High Performance Cycling, is the Editor of the European Journal of Sport Science and member of the editorial board of several other journals. In 2005 he was awarded a Danone Chair in Nutrition at the Free University Brussels in Belgium.
Asker’s main goal is to perform research at the cutting edge but also to apply this research and translate scientific findings into something that is useful to athletes and in fact every individual who wants to be physically active. Ultimately the research is aimed at helping people to achieve their potential; whether this is being more physically active or winning medals at Olympic Games. He has worked with many top athletes including track and field athletes of UK Athletics, Chelsea Football Club, Olympic swimmers and Tour de France cyclists.  Asker was one of the members of a group brought together by the IOC to formulate a consensus statement on sports nutrition.
Asker is also an Ironman triathlete himself and tries to apply the research findings in his own races. He was GB age group duathlon champion in 2004, won a marathon (San Francisco Golden Gate Headlands) in 2006 and competed at the European and World Championships duathlon, Ironman and Ironman 70.3. His main goal is to qualify again for the World Championship Ironman in Kona Hawaii.

Ron Maughan

Ron Maughan obtained his BSc (Physiology) and PhD from the University of Aberdeen, and held a lecturing position in Liverpool before returning to Aberdeen where he was based for almost 25 years. He began as a Clinical research Fellow in the Department of Surgery and progressed to a personal Chair in Human Physiology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. He is now a Visiting Professor at Loughborough University. He has published extensively in the scientific literature, and is an Editor of several international journals, including Experimental Physiology, European Journal of Applied Physiology, International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, and Journal of Sports Sciences.
Professor Maughan is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and a member of many scientific organisations, including the Physiological Society, the Nutrition Society, the Biochemical Society, and the Medical Research Society. He chaired the Human and Exercise Physiology group of the Physiological Society for 10 years and is a member of the Council of that organisation. He is secretary of the Sports Nutrition group established by the IOC Medical Commission in 2002. He also acts as an adviser to UK Athletics, the Irish Sports Council and to various other sporting bodies.
On moving to Loughborough, Professor Maughan establishes a new taught Masters Degree program in Sport and Exercise Nutrition. His research interests are in the physiology, biochemistry and nutrition of exercise performance, with an interest in both the basic science of exercise and the applied aspects that relate to health and to performance in sport.

Bengt Saltin

Professor Bengt Saltin is a world leading human physiologist. As a medical doctor he has devoted his life to researching the effects of physical exercise on health and performance. No single scientist in modern times has covered more or has such a significant impact on discovering the nature of human function. He has published over 500 papers covering vast areas of physiology. He coined and proved the term ‘humans were meant to move’ from the level of gene expression to heart and muscle function. His famous ‘bed rest’ study transformed medical practice on how people recover from heart attacks, general surgery, or injury. He proved the importance and limits of the heart in athletes and cardiac patients, described and explained the genetic basis for why world-class marathoners and sprinters run so fast. He provided the scientific basis for determining if an athlete is using performance-enhancing drugs. Most importantly, his emphasis on gene-environment interaction has extended our fundamental scientific knowledge of human physiology by clarifying the importance of the environment for optimizing gene expression. He is now exploring the ways how inactivity causes diabetes. Bengt Saltin has extended the scientific lineage of the Nobel laureate August Krogh by acting as Director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Centre, the leading human physiology institute in the world.
He has served as Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, directed multiple national and international governmental health and medical organizations, and currently serves on the scientific board of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He has received the highest international honours in his field. In 2002, he was awarded the IOC Prize, an Olympic Gold Medal, for having made the greatest contribution to our understanding of exercise for health and performance. By consensus of his peers, at the last World Scientific Congress in Athens in 2004, he was introduced for his keynote address as the “Aristotle of Human Physiology”

Mark Tarnopolsky

Professor Mark Tarnopolsky, is the clinical and research director of the Corkins/Lammert Family Neuromuscular and Neurometabolic Clinic at McMaster University.  He holds a Hamilton Regional Assessment Center endowed chair in Neuromuscular Disorders, and is a Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine.  His research focuses on nutritional, exercise and pharmacological therapies for neurometabolic and neuromuscular disorders.  In addition, he studies the physiological and molecular aspects of mitochondrial adaptation to exercise, aging and the metabolic syndrome.  More recently, his laboratory has been evaluating the role of the mitochondria and intra-myocellular lipids in response to exercise and obesity. He has authored or coauthored more than 170 scientific articles.  He has also lectured widely on neurology (neuromuscular and neurometabolic disorders), nutrition and exercise physiology.  He is on the editorial board of Muscle & Nerve and Associate Editor for MSSE.  He has been Chair of Animal Biology for NSERC (2003-2006) and is on the CIHR Biology of Aging Committee (2006-present). Besides this, Mark has been a succesful endurance athlete for many years winning adventure and running races.

Kevin Tipton

Dr Kevin Tipton received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Zoology from the Univ. of Kentucky and the Univ of South Florida, respectively. He began his doctoral studies at the Florida State Univ. and transferred to Auburn Univ where he earned a PhD in Nutrition. He did his postdoctoral studies on the interaction of nutrition and exercise on muscle protein metabolism under the direction of Dr. Robert Wolfe at the Univ. of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.  Subsequently, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor, Dept of Surgery, University of Texas Medical Branch and on the Scientific Staff of the Metabolism Unit, Shriners Hospital for Children – Galveston. He continued his research on muscle protein metabolism, exercise and nutrition and served as the Director of the Exercise Metabolism Laboratory at the Shriner’s Hospital. In spring 2005, Kevin began as Senior Lecturer in Exercise Metabolism in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham.
Kevin’s research has been focused on exercise, nutrition and muscle metabolism in humans. The general goal of the research has been to examine means of increasing muscle anabolism in athletes and exercising individuals as well as those populations that suffer from muscle loss. The studies primarily utilize stable isotopic tracer methods to measure muscle protein synthesis, breakdown and net muscle protein balance in response to exercise and nutritional interventions, as well as the molecular mechanisms of the metabolic responses. He has published over 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters and has been invited to speak at numerous international and national conferences.
He is an Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology and on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.
His interest in exercise science extends to the application of the science to athletic populations. He was the Sports Nutrition adviser for the Athletic Department at Auburn University and recently served as a Visiting Scientist at the Australian Institute of Sport in the Department of Sports Nutrition and for the International Olympic Committee on the IOC Sports Nutrition Consensus Conference committee. He also has coached and served as fitness and nutrition advisor for amateur soccer and rugby clubs. Whenever uninjured, he still trains for and plays soccer and rugby and runs road races and, with luck, triathlons.

Phil Watson

Dr Phil Watson completed degrees in Sports Science and Sports Nutrition before undertaking a PhD in Exercise Physiology at Loughborough University. This work investigated possible central mechanisms of fatigue during exercise in a warm environment. Building on this, Phil's primary research interests now lie in understanding the role of the central nervous system in the development of fatigue during prolonged exercise. Phil was the 2004 American College of Sports Medicine International Scholar, which supported a period of research at the University of South Carolina, USA and he collaborates with research groups in Europe. Phil is currently working as a Research Associate in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Loughborough University.