Damon Runyon Researchers

Dr. Dumesic seeks to understand how physical exercise promotes health. In addition to strengthening skeletal muscle, exercise also benefits distant organ systems, providing protection from metabolic disorders and chronic diseases including cancer. These widespread effects highlight muscle’s ability to communicate via secreted signals. However, the ability to pharmacologically modulate these signals for therapeutic gain is challenged by our limited understanding of their identities and mechanisms of action.  By identifying muscle-derived signaling factors involved in muscle homeostasis and systemic metabolism, this research promises to suggest new avenues for therapy against cancer-associated cachexia, a condition of muscle wasting and perturbed metabolism.