ABOUT US
AIMS
The lab's objectives can be summarised as:
· To understand the functionality of muscles and more specifically the parameters contributing to muscle fatigue and/or muscle weakness and how they affect the overall health condition and physical motivation of an individual.
· To analyse the parameters that are linked to disease, which in turn leads to muscle atrophy, enabling hypoactivity and increasing the risk of untimely death.
· To contribute in the prevention and if that’s not possible, management of chronic diseases through specifically designed and accredited exercise programmes.
· To contribute to the understanding of the repairing mechanisms following muscle dysfunction in order to uncover effective interventions to regain muscle functionality. The ultimate goal of this objective is to increase the quality and length of life of both healthy and chronic disease patients.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Combining biophysical, biochemical and mechanical methodologies, our lab researches muscle functionality and the phenomenon of fatigue in skeletal muscles in chronic pathology conditions, both in individual muscle fibers, as well as in vitro muscle. There is also a focus on the in-depth analysis of the healing properties exercise can have in chronic conditions. In collaboration with specializing physicians, our lab implements specifically designed exercise programmes to patients with chronic conditions for the improvement of their quality of life and more specifically:
On halting the conditions’ progression
On patients’ physical functionality
In the patient’s overall health and consequentially the duration of hospitalization
In the patient’s psychological health and therefore their social life
In the patient’s ability to remain as “productive members of society”
COLLABORATIONS
Our lab has had the opportunity to collaborate with leading groups through the years, for example:
Dr Philippou's group at the University of Athens in an effort to better understand muscle atrophy patterns in chronic diseases.
Dr Psarra's group at the University of Thessaly with the aim to decipher the role of mitochondrial involvement in molecular mechanisms of myopathies.
Prof Myburgh' group at Stellenbosch University, via exchange of PhD student visits and skeletal muscle research.
Prof Geeves' group at the University of Kent to understand muscle type differences in actomyosin kinetics
Prof Cooke's group at UCSF revisiting the super-relaxed state
Prof. Mayans' group affiliated with the University of Konstanz and the SME BME innovation team. The collaboration lead to the training of PhD student M. Markovich in single muscle mechanics techniques and a new direction investigating mechanisms of proteolysis and how they affect force generation.
The Muscle Stress Relief consortium in various educational, research and innovation actions (Dr Jan Knight, from Knight Scientific, UK, Prof Socrates Tzartos from Tzartos Neurodiagnostics, Greece and Prof Siegrfied Labeit from the University of Heideelbergh Germany), and others).
Prof Stefanidis group at the University of Thessaly in an over decade long collaboration regarding the mechanisms of functional deficits in haemodialysis patients and interventions to improve kidney patients' quality of life.
Action Heart UK for the training of UG students in cardiac rehabilitation.
Trikala General Hospital.
Larissa University Hospital.
Colleagues across DPESS research branches.
FUNDED RESEARCH
COST ACTION – CA20104 - “Network on evidence-based physical activity in old age” (OC-2020-1-24443, Acronym: PhysAgeNet, Coordinator: Michael Brach, 2021-2025
Rising Stars Rising Stars Scheme 2021-22 “The investigation of the effects of low energy availability (LEA) and relative energy deficiency in sports (RED-S) on the mental health, disordered eating behavior and metabolic/hormonal dysregulations in young adults and competitive athletes”
“Muscle Stress Relief” – funded by the Marie Sktodowska-Curie Actions, RISE scheme
“Understanding Movement and Mechanism in Molecular Machines
"COST action CM1306”
“Muscle-Fun” – funded by Thalis
These research programmes have led to a large sum of journal article publications, e-books and conference minutes on the research topics of muscle fatigue and weakness, muscle functionality and the physical assessment and improvement of quality of life in chronic patient populations as well as athletes.
For more information, please check our Research Overview page.