Researchers want to know what happens in your body at the molecular level when you exercise. In the largest exercise research program of its kind, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are part of a National Institutes of Health effort to collect and turn data from nearly 2,600 volunteers into comprehensive maps of the molecular changes in the body due to exercise.
UAB’s Center for Exercise Medicine is one of the clinical sites nationwide participating in the NIH-funded Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium, or MoTrPAC, which aims to increase our understanding by measuring molecular changes in healthy adults and children before, during and after exercise.
“It is well-known from decades of scientific research that physical activity has substantial health benefits; but we do not fully understand why, especially at the molecular level,” said Marcas Bamman, Ph.D., professor in the UAB Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology in the School of Medicine and director of the Center for Exercise Medicine.
“The large study size is meant to account for person-to-person variation, and to reveal differences based on demographics like age, race and gender.”