Ferdinand von Walden, M.D., Ph.D., will speak about skeletal muscle biology in health and disease at the U of A on Tuesday, May 2.

The Health, Human Performance and Recreation Outside Guest Speaker Series (HOGSS) talk will be held from 2-3:30 p.m. in HPER 319. The guest speaker, sponsored by HHPR faculty member Kevin Murach, is an assistant professor of clinical muscle physiology at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and a resident in pediatrics at the Karolinska University Hospital, also in Stockholm. He leads a multidisciplinary team focusing on molecular muscle physiology in health and disease and physical activity adaptations in children and adults.

Von Walden is interested in pediatric clinical muscle biology as well as the mechanism of muscle mass regulation in adult skeletal muscle. His work spans the spectrum from whole-body function in humans to mechanistic pre-clinical models. His presentation is titled “Skeletal Muscle Biology in Health and Disease: From Cerebral Palsy to Ribosome Biogenesis” and will focus on two ongoing research projects in the lab:

• muscle pathophysiology and exercise capacity in adolescents with cerebral palsy
• de novo ribosome synthesis in skeletal muscle in response to mechanical loading

HOGSS seminars are free and open to the public. The series is intended to expose students and faculty to research being conducted in the Department of Health Human Performance, and Recreation.