How can we harness autophagy keep skeletal muscle and metabolism healthy?

Skeletal muscle is the largest tissue by mass in the human body and yet there is a major clinical gap in the lack of treatments for diseased muscle. This limitation has enormous health implications for Australia and globally. This includes muscle weakness (called sarcopenia), immobility and poor quality of life in the elderly, in individuals with severe, inherited skeletal muscle disorders called muscular dystrophies and myopathies which can be fatal in the first years of life, and in obesity where skeletal muscle plays a major metabolic role. To address this un-met clinical need, our laboratory focuses on the 'garbage disposal system' of the cell, called autophagy. This is a fundamental process conserved throughout millions of years of evolution, and we aim to harness its power to understand muscle disease mechanisms and identify new treatments. Through this approach we have made discoveries on new causes of muscular dystrophy, identified modifiers of exercise performance and revealed novel targets to prevent obesity irrespective of food intake and activity levels. The project will be working alongside a postdoc to continue our research in understanding the role of autophagy in skeletal muscle health and metabolism by examining the new pathways we have identified. Our projects take a broad and comprehensive approach, ranging from deciphering gene/protein function to mapping disease pathways, to understanding whole-organism/human physiology. We combine use of patient-derived models (induced pluripotent stem cells and muscle biopsies) together with mouse models. Techniques include cell biology, advanced microscopy, 3D electron microscopy, fluorescent-biosensors, histology, metabolic phenotyping, histology, exercise physiology, CRISPR, proteomics and metabolomics. Only extremely dedicated and driven students with excellent oral and written communication skills should apply. Evidence of prior lab experience is highly desirable.