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Minutes from January 8th 2014

Medical Exchange Club meeting

Speaker:

Ken Walsh, PhD,

Aram V. Chobanian Distinguished Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine

Director, Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute Boston University School of Medicine

Date:

8th January, 2014

Location:

St. Botolph Club, Boston

Members Present:

Barbara Gilchrest
David Nathan
Mark Poznansky
Nick Zervas
Joe Martin
Terry Flotte

Pat Donahoe
Jay Vacanti
Robert Sackstein
John T Potts
Aram Chobanian
Thoru Pederson

Cocktails:

Conversations prior to the talk and dinner included reminiscences of hard winters past. This being a particularly unpleasant one. The least said about this the better. I like this!

Talk:

All participants in the meeting, and the attendance was excellent, were privileged to hear an outstanding scientific presentation from Ken. He focused his talk on his seminal work into cytokines released by muscle cells (myokines) that he has identified and then explored their metabolic functions related to the maintenance of muscle mass and their impact on metabolism and obesity. These refined and elegant studies involved an exploration of the impact of the myokine and metabolic regulator, FGF21, on skeletal muscle mass and resistance muscle training in transgenic murine models.  Signaling for this function was shown to be accomplished through Akt. Furthermore, Ken described the fascinating finding that myogenic Akt signaling is activated by resistance training which also preferentially leads to the growth of fast/glycolytic muscle. He showed how his team’s work supported the idea that skeletal muscle Akt1 signaling, promoted by resistance training could also reduce obesity. This work, as set out so clearly by Ken, reveals new potential therapeutic and preventative targets in obesity as well age related skeletal muscle loss.

Post-Dinner Discussion:

This excellent talk, which was accompanied by both dinner and mental rather than physical exercise (very clever again!), was followed by a wide-ranging discussion of the intricacies of the science that Ken presented and the public health message that should emanate from it. It also became clear during discussion that Ken not only studies but also practices what he preaches, as he mentioned his personal dietary and exercise regimens.

Respectfully submitted, Mark Poznansky, Scribe