Uploaded September 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Dr. Graham has spent the majority of his time as an early career scientist looking into ways to preserve muscle health and function after traumatic spinal cord injury (tSCI). There are 300,000 individuals in the US with a tSCI. The unique physiological effects of tSCI make full or even partial recovery following severe injuries difficult and pharmaceutical therapies have been shown to be largely ineffective. Zachary will highlight some of these difficulties.
Recently, Zachary has developed in interest in Parkinson’s disease (PD). It is starting to become widely accepted that PD may begin in the enteric nervous system where it causes disruption in digestion, gut homeostasis and even sleep, before entering the central nervous system. Outside of the traditional presenting symptoms of PD such as the development of tremor and changes in gait and speech patterns, PD is very much a mitochondrial disease as almost all tissues investigated in those with PD have shown markers of mitochondrial dysfunction. Dr. Graham has started collaborating with colleagues at IHMC to better understand how high-intensity resistance exercise improves clinical, performance, and molecular outcomes after long-duration training.
Zachary Graham is a Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), a Health Science Research Specialist with the Birmingham VA Health Care System, and an Affiliate Assistant Professor in Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. He received his BA in Spanish from The Ohio State University, and both MS and PhD in Exercise Physiology at the University of Kansas. He completed his postdoctoral training in muscle physiology at the National Center of Excellence for the Medical Consequences of Spinal Cord Injury at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, NY. He joined IHMC as a part-time investigator in 2021 and as a full-time investigator in 2024.
This lecture is part of the IHMC Evening Lecture series.
ihmc.us/life/evening_lectures
Dr. Graham has spent the majority of his time as an early career scientist looking into ways to preserve muscle health and function after traumatic spinal cord injury (tSCI). There are 300,000 individuals in the US with a tSCI. The unique physiological effects of tSCI make full or even partial recovery following severe injuries difficult and pharmaceutical therapies have been shown to be largely ineffective. Zachary will highlight some of these difficulties.
Recently, Zachary has developed in interest in Parkinson’s disease (PD). It is starting to become widely accepted that PD may begin in the enteric nervous system where it causes disruption in digestion, gut homeostasis and even sleep, before entering the central nervous system. Outside of the traditional presenting symptoms of PD such as the development of tremor and changes in gait and speech patterns, PD is very much a mitochondrial disease as almost all tissues investigated in those with PD have shown markers of mitochondrial dysfunction. Dr. Graham has started collaborating with colleagues at IHMC to better understand how high-intensity resistance exercise improves clinical, performance, and molecular outcomes after long-duration training.
Zachary Graham is a Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), a Health Science Research Specialist with the Birmingham VA Health Care System, and an Affiliate Assistant Professor in Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. He received his BA in Spanish from The Ohio State University, and both MS and PhD in Exercise Physiology at the University of Kansas. He completed his postdoctoral training in muscle physiology at the National Center of Excellence for the Medical Consequences of Spinal Cord Injury at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, NY. He joined IHMC as a part-time investigator in 2021 and as a full-time investigator in 2024.
This lecture is part of the IHMC Evening Lecture series.
ihmc.us/life/evening_lectures
