Dr. David J. Glass visits to talk about Experimental Design
Join Dr. David J. Glass at 1 p.m. Thursday in CTW 127 as he visits the College of Health Sciences to present a "Special Seminar on Experimental Design."
"The University of Kentucky has long had an excellent group focusing on skeletal muscle research," says Glass, Vice President, Research-Aging/Age-Related Disorders, and Director, Postdoctoral Fellow Program at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company headquartered in Westchester County, New York. "So it’s a pleasure to come here and compare notes.”
Dr. Glass says the presentation will "appeal to graduate students familiar with molecular and cellular biology, and professional students, as well as faculty."
Dr. Glass's research has been focused on age-related disorders, particularly as they impact skeletal muscle and metabolism. He and his co-workers discovered two E3 ubiquitin ligases, MuRF1 and MAFbx, which mediate skeletal muscle atrophy; they went on to show that MuRF1 mediates the degradation of Myosin Heavy Chain, thus helping to break down the sarcomere during muscle atrophy.
His group went on to define the signaling pathways regulating MuRF1 and MAFbx/Atrogin1 upregulation, and those pathways which can block that upregulation. In addition to studying muscle breakdown, his group also has studied skeletal muscle hypertrophy — and demonstrated that the growth factor IGF1 mediates hypertrophy through the activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTORC1 pathway.
At Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Glass established the Muscle Diseases group at Novartis in October 2005. In this capacity, he coordinated research activities of group members in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge, Mass. In January 2014, he established the Age-related Disorders group at Novartis.
In August of 2019, he returned to Regeneron as a Vice President of Research, in charge of a new group on Aging/Age-Related Disorders. He also directs the Postdoctoral Fellow Program at Regeneron.
His academic ties include serving as the founding editor and co-editor-in-chief of the journal, Skeletal Muscle, launched in January 2011. He authored the book, Experimental Design for Biologists, published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (2006). The book’s second edition was published August 2014 and is one of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press’s top sellers.
He also established and taught two courses at Harvard Medical School (HMS): “Experimental Design for Biologists,” and “History and Philosophy of Experimentation in Biology." He serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, and an Adjunct Professor, in the Department of Genetics and Development, at Columbia University. He's also a Trustee of the Gordon Research Conferences, 2017-2023.