Physiology of oxygen transport in the mammalian kidney. This project aims to improve understanding of oxygen regulation in renal tissue and knowledge of the physiology of the kidney. The mammalian kidney receives more oxygen than it uses or needs, and yet renal tissue is commonly found to be hypoxic. This project proposes that oxygen transport to the renal tissue is limited by blood vessel surface area. The project expects to generate anatomical data currently missing from the renal physiology c ....Physiology of oxygen transport in the mammalian kidney. This project aims to improve understanding of oxygen regulation in renal tissue and knowledge of the physiology of the kidney. The mammalian kidney receives more oxygen than it uses or needs, and yet renal tissue is commonly found to be hypoxic. This project proposes that oxygen transport to the renal tissue is limited by blood vessel surface area. The project expects to generate anatomical data currently missing from the renal physiology community, and potentially change the accepted story of oxygen homeostasis in the kidney. This will provide significant benefits, such as the provision of the foundational physiological science behind a determinant of kidney health and its flow-on impact to quality of life.Read moreRead less
Sarcoplasmic reticulum-mitochondrial functional interactions in muscle. Muscle in the body of animals and human has the ability to adapt to stress placed on it, to improve performance. This allows new physical tasks that have been unfamiliar to become easier. One form of stress on the muscle is the demand to work longer without fatigue. This can be important for animal survival or athletes training for sport. A single session of intense muscle contractions can lead to the muscle increasing its c ....Sarcoplasmic reticulum-mitochondrial functional interactions in muscle. Muscle in the body of animals and human has the ability to adapt to stress placed on it, to improve performance. This allows new physical tasks that have been unfamiliar to become easier. One form of stress on the muscle is the demand to work longer without fatigue. This can be important for animal survival or athletes training for sport. A single session of intense muscle contractions can lead to the muscle increasing its capacity for endurance within 24 hrs. This project aims to examine this phenomenon in animals and human to decipher the mechanism involved in the beneficial muscle changes experienced in such a brief time. It will provide benefits such as the potential to manipulate human muscle condition and animal muscle (meat) quality.Read moreRead less
Regulated muscle-based thermogenesis for body temperature regulation. Mammals maintain a constant core body temperature by generating heat in resting muscles in response to changes in the environmental temperatures. This project aims to show how the skeletal muscles that are closer to the body core contribute the majority of heat, how the muscles of the limbs have their heat generation curtailed as necessary, and how this is coordinated by the body in response to ambient temperature. Project out ....Regulated muscle-based thermogenesis for body temperature regulation. Mammals maintain a constant core body temperature by generating heat in resting muscles in response to changes in the environmental temperatures. This project aims to show how the skeletal muscles that are closer to the body core contribute the majority of heat, how the muscles of the limbs have their heat generation curtailed as necessary, and how this is coordinated by the body in response to ambient temperature. Project outcomes include defining, for the first time, how heat generation in the muscles of the body is regulated. This should provide critical knowledge of mammalian evolution and ways to manipulate metabolism, which may provide ways to assist the production of meat by managing hypothermia and hyperthermia risk in agriculture.Read moreRead less
A thermodynamic pathway to intracellular delivery. Cells transmit information through molecules. By delivering foreign molecules into cells, such as DNA and proteins, it is possible to engineer and reprogram cells just like a computer. This proposal aims to develop a novel microfluidic device for intracellular delivery. The device will work by exposing cells to rapid thermal shock to generate transient disruptions in cell membranes and thereby enable influx of foreign molecules into cells. To un ....A thermodynamic pathway to intracellular delivery. Cells transmit information through molecules. By delivering foreign molecules into cells, such as DNA and proteins, it is possible to engineer and reprogram cells just like a computer. This proposal aims to develop a novel microfluidic device for intracellular delivery. The device will work by exposing cells to rapid thermal shock to generate transient disruptions in cell membranes and thereby enable influx of foreign molecules into cells. To understand how the method can be optimized, the thermodynamic pathway of membrane disruption will be investigated at a single cell level. The methods and insights arising from this project could eventually lead to novel, patentable and lower-cost health technologies.Read moreRead less