Dr N Clarke, Dr P Mundy, Dr I Haussmann
No more applications being accepted
Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
About the Project
Greater muscular strength is strongly associated with improved physical performance in athletes. A recent investigation identified 16 loci associated with handgrip strength; however, handgrip strength is a poor indicator of athletic performance. Therefore, investigation into more ecologically valid strength measures is warranted. Furthermore, there is a large variability in both muscle size and strength gains in response to resistance training. It has been suggested that an up-regulation of myonuclear transcriptional activity during the early stages of myofiber hypertrophy leads to altered expression of genes known to modulate myofiber size. In addition, follow-up functional annotation revealed networks favouring growth, ribosomal activity, and stem cell activity in extreme ‘responders’ versus pro-inflammatory processes in ‘non-responders’, which suggests that the pre-training muscle transcriptome profile is highly influential in the resistance training myofiber hypertrophy adaptation. Therefore, the overall aim of this investigation is to establish the genetic basis and molecular regulation for measures of strength associated with athletic performance in comparison to older adult performance, and the responses to resistance training in trained individuals.
Methodology and innovations
Study 1: Relationship between polymorphic variants, ecologically valid strength measures and performance in university athletes (with comparison across ethnicity, sex, etc., as well as vs. control) versus control and elderly populations.
Study 2: Genotypes associated with changes in ecologically valid strength measures and athletic performance in response to normal university training in university athletes versus control and elderly populations.
Study 3: Genotypes associated with changes in ecologically valid strength measures and athletic performance in response to resistance training in university athletes versus control and elderly populations.
Applications
Applicants must apply using the online form on the University Alliance website at https://unialliance.ac.uk/dta/cofund/how-to-apply-2/. Full details of the programme, eligibility details and a list of available research projects can be seen at https://unialliance.ac.uk/dta/cofund/
The final deadline for application is 12 April 2019.
Funding Notes
DTA3/COFUND participants will be employed for 36 months with a minimum salary of (approximately) £20,989 per annum. Tuition fees will waived for DTA3/COFUND participants who will also be able to access an annual DTA elective bursary to enable attendance at DTA training events and interact with colleagues across the Doctoral Training Alliance(s).
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 801604.
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