University
Tyrone Washington, a professor in the College of Education and Health Professions, is the principal investigator on the three-year grant.
Loss of muscle mass often results from significant trauma, such as injuries sustained from stepping on an improvised explosive device on the battlefield, compression injuries from a car accident, and some resective surgeries, such as tumor removal.
Professor Tyrone Washington from the Faculty of Education and Health Professions was recently awarded a R15 grant of $434,793 from the National Institutes of Health to research ways to promote recovery after devastating events such as this one.
Washington, an associate professor of exercise science in the School of Health, Human Performance and Recreation, is the principal investigator on the three-year grant.
Collaborators include fellow exercise science professors Nicholas Green and Kevin Mrak, and Jeff Wolchok, chair of the University of Alberta Department of Biomedical Engineering. Students will also contribute significantly to the project, receiving unique, hands-on training in advanced biomedical research.
“Receiving funding from the NIH is an exciting milestone as it fuels a long-held passion for understanding skeletal muscle regeneration, an area I have been dedicated to exploring since 2001,” Washington said.
He is grateful to have met Walchok at the President's Dinner for New Faculty in 2011, when Walchok introduced Washington to volumetric muscle loss, a more severe type of muscle injury that does not fully regenerate.
“This opportunity will allow me to delve deeper into the science that I have always believed has the potential to be transformative in regenerative medicine,” Washington added.
Current treatments for volumetric muscle loss cap muscle recovery at about 80 percent, limiting normal daily activities for extended periods of time. Washington and Wolchok have been investigating new ways to extend this cap by combining surgical repair with physical exercise approaches.
The NIH grant will leverage these combined approaches to improve current treatment paradigms and enhance recovery and long-term physical function after volumetric muscle loss injuries.
Washington became interested in muscle regeneration while working as a graduate student in the lab of James Carson, who is now Director of the Huffines Institute for Sports Medicine and Human Performance and a professor at Texas A&M University. He was mentored by some of the most renowned scientists in the field of muscle biology. Washington became deeply immersed in Carson's research on muscle plasticity, which is defined as the ability of a particular muscle to change its structural and functional properties in response to given environmental conditions.
“Through this training, I developed a passion for all things muscle, and specifically skeletal muscle regeneration,” Washington said. “My dissertation really looked at the role of the inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) in skeletal muscle hypertrophy and skeletal muscle regeneration, so this has been an interest of mine for a long time.”
Carson said he was thrilled to hear the news of his NIH funding in Washington. “One of the true joys of being a professor is watching the success of former students over the years,” he said. “Tyrone was one of the first students to work with me when I was just starting my lab as an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina. I don't know why, but I'm very grateful that he took a chance on an unproven advisor. We went on to form a great team and guided him through his PhD and published many impactful papers.”
Carson noted that funding from the NIH is highly competitive, and proposed projects and investigators are rigorously reviewed by a committee of established experts. “The award of NIH funding to Tyrone is a valid validation of his research stature and accomplishments, and demonstrates his ongoing efforts to develop and produce impactful research for the foreseeable future,” he said.
Nicholas Green, director of the University of Arkansas Exercise Science Research Center, has worked with Washington since 2013. He praised Washington's research and achievements. “As a biomedical researcher, NIH funding is considered one of the ultimate barometers of professional success,” Green said. “Since joining the University of Arkansas faculty, Tyrone has worked tirelessly and diligently to develop a research program and to nurture the undergraduate and graduate students he has worked with.”
