PhD students participating in August Krogh seminars receive 0,2 ECTS per seminar
AKC Double Seminar: Capillaries - Tiny Vessels, Big Impact: Unraveling Skeletal Muscle Blood Flow Regulation
Professor and Chair Coral Murrant
August Krogh Club Double Seminar
14:00-14:45: Coral Murrant: ”Rethinking Capillaries as Central to the Control of Tissue Blood Flow”.
14:45-15:30: Christopher G. Ellis: "Capillaries: the control center for matching oxygen supply to oxygen demand”.
15:30-16:30: Post seminar servings and socializing.
Rethinking Capillaries as Central to the Control of Tissue Blood Flow
Professor and Chair Coral Murrant, Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract
Any tissue inadequately perfused with blood will fail. Matching blood flow to a tissues changing metabolic demand is critical for proper cellular and tissue function, and critical to prevent damage. These processes require systems of communication between active cells within a tissue and the microvasculature feeding the tissue. Skeletal muscle requires particularly sophisticated communication because it is possible for one part of the tissue to be active while others are not, therefore, blood flow must be directed specifically to active regions and not the whole tissue.
This careful targeting of blood flow within skeletal muscle requires (i) that active skeletal muscle fibres communicate their needs for increased oxygen to the microvasculature, and (ii) intercommunication within the microvasculature network to direct blood flow to the capillaries feeding the active fibres.
Our understanding of how these important processes happen is incomplete. Traditionally, this field has focused on arterioles as the important mediators of blood flow control but we have been investigating the role of capillaries.
This presentation will discuss the properties of capillaries that support that capillaries are central to blood flow control in skeletal muscle, that capillaries can sense the tissue environment and that capillaries can signal and coordinate the microvasculature to direct blood flow to active cells within a tissue.
Research Profile
Dr. Coral Murrant graduated with a PhD from the University of Guelph with a degree in Biophysics studying macrovascular blood flow control to skeletal muscle under Dr. Jack Barclay. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Texas studying free radicals in skeletal muscle and microscopy techniques with Dr. Michael Reid and at the University of Rochester, New York, studying microvascular blood flow in skeletal muscle with Dr. Ingrid Sarelius. Dr. Murrant returned to the University of Guelph, Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences as faculty in 2000 where she is currently Professor and Chair.
Her main research focus centres around peripheral blood flow control and specifically how tissues coordinate their own blood flow. She has been studying this phenomena in skeletal muscle working on questions surrounding how contracting skeletal muscle fibres and the microvasculature communicate and integrate in order to ensure adequate blood flow to the working skeletal muscle cells. She has been focusing on the potential central role of capillaries in these processes.
Literature
Venue
Auditorium 1, August Krogh Building, Universitetsparken 13, DK-2100 Copenhagen
Registration
Participation is free, but please register here.
For PhD students
PhD students participating in August Krogh seminars receive 0,2 ECTS per seminar
Contact
Kate Aiko Wickham, kawi@nexs.ku.dk
Jens Frey Halling, jefh@nexs.ku.dk
