Department: Department of Human Health Sciences

Amanda Wright

The role of physical properties in determining the metabolic and health effects of foods is often overlooked. We aim to better understand the relationships between food properties and metabolic response, particularly for dietary lipids. After chemical and structural analyses, real and model food systems are exposed to simulated gastrointestinal conditions using static and dynamic models. This generates insight into how food properties interact with the biochemical and biophysical aspects of digestion to determine nutrient release and absorption. We couple these experimental approaches with human clinical trials to relate material properties and their digestive behavior with metabolic endpoints (e.g. absorption, satiety, inflammation, lipemia, gastrointestinal symptoms).

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Stephen Brown

Our research is dedicated to understanding mechanisms that dictate healthy function of the human spine, and ultimately the causes and consequences of low back injury and pain. To do this we study the mechanics and physiology of the lumbar spine and its musculature. We use both human and animal models to understand different aspects of how spine movement is achieved and what "normal" movement looks like, the role of muscle in producing this movement and stabilizing the spine, and how the spine and muscle both adapt to injury and how they can be rehabilitated from injury.

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Philip Millar

The primary aim of my research is to better understand the mechanisms that control, and functional consequences of, sympathetic outflow at rest and during stress in humans with and without cardiovascular disease. To uncover these mechanisms, my laboratory employs direct intra-neural recordings of postganglionic sympathetic traffic, studying both multi- and single-fibre preparations. Additionally, we are also interested in understanding the mechanisms responsible for the large inter-individual variability in blood pressure responses to stress, as well as testing novel interventions to reduce resting blood pressure, a major modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

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