The Rasmussen Lab

San Antonio Pepper Center secures $6.5M grant to advance aging research - UT Health San Antonio The population of older Americans is expanding rapidly and is expected to double by 2060. While people are living longer than ever, many are also living with chronic health problems that impact their ...

👏 Big news from @uthealthsa.bsky.social !

The Claude D. Pepper Center secured a $6.5M NIH grant to expand aging research—adding a new Molecular Phenotyping Core and strengthening efforts to help older adults maintain independence in South Texas. 🧬⏳

#AgingResearch #PepperCenter

👉 bit.ly/46kSHdj

We are looking forward to hearing from Dr. Teresa Zimmers today in San Antonio.

Integrated Muscle Protein Synthesis During Disuse and Rehabilitation in Late-Midlife Adults | American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology | American Physiological... Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate the sex-specific differences in how late-midlife adults respond to short term disuse and rehabilitation. Methods: Sixteen, late-midlife adults, who we...

Sean Kilroe, a productive postdoctoral fellow in the lab, is the first author on a new paper from the lab where we used deuterated water to assess protein synthesis during a week of disuse and exercise rehabilitation. journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Juan Pablo Palavicini, Ph.D. - Cellular and Integrative Physiology

We are excited to announce that Dr. JP Palavicini has joined the Department of Cellular & Integrative Physiology as an Assistant Professor, Tenure-Track, at the Long School of Medicine at UT San Antonio. His expertise is in aging, neurodegeneration, and metabolism. lsom.uthscsa.edu/physiology/t...

Endurance Training Enhances Sex-Specific Cardioprotective Metabolism | Circulation Research

Happy to share a new paper led by Pauline Brochet and in collaboration with some of our MoTrPAC colleagues.

Endurance Training Enhances Sex-Specific Cardioprotective Metabolism | Circulation Research www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/...

Dr. Sanjay Kumar Kureel, a talented postdoctoral fellow in the lab, has put together a comprehensive review of a hot topic in aging - ferroptosis. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40768631/
www.aginganddisease.org/EN/10.14336/...

A recent paper from the lab. Zach Von Ruff, a recently graduated PhD student, shows the time course of human skeletal muscle gene expression during disuse and exercise rehabilitation.
physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.14814...

Yi Zhu, Ph.D. - Cellular and Integrative Physiology

We are excited to announce that Dr. Yi Zhu has joined the Department of Cellular & Integrative Physiology as an Associate Professor at the UT Health San Antonio School of Medicine and the Barshop Institute for Longevity & Aging Studies - where her lab is located.
lsom.uthscsa.edu/physiology/t...

We welcome Dr. Cholsoon Jang from UC Irvine to San Antonio for the Molecular Metabolism Seminar Series.

I am happy to announce that Anya Kalenta successfully defended her dissertation today. It was a pleasure working with her over the last 4 years. Congratulations Dr. Kalenta!!

Please join us at the Mayan Dude Ranch in Bandera, Texas (October 9-12, 2025) for the annual Masoro-Barshop Conference on Aging. The theme this year is “Dietary Approaches to Geroscience Intervention.”

We welcome Dr. Jim Carson, the new Director of the Texas A&M Huffines Institute for Sports Medicine & Human Performance, to San Antonio for our Molecular Metabolism Seminar Series.

We’re proud to be a Semifinalist team of #XPRIZEHealthspan, a 7-year, $101 million global competition that aims to revolutionize the way we approach human aging. We look forward to this next chapter of the competition as we continue to develop our therapeutic to extend healthspan. @xprize.org

Low-Frequency Ultrasound Reverses Insulin Resistance and Diabetes Induced Changes in the Muscle Transcriptome in Aged Mice | American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism | American Phys... The risk for developing insulin resistance and type II diabetes increases with age. Although lifestyle factors contribute to age-related insulin resistance, aging itself independently reduces insulin ...

Congratulations to Erik Marchant, a 3rd year PhD student in the lab, on his first publication from his dissertation. Erik used low-frequency ultrasound in old mice with insulin resistance and diabetes.
journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Human Skeletal Muscle Disuse Atrophy has Profound and Negative Effects on the Muscle Metabolome and Lipidome | American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism | American Physiological Soci... We investigated how short-term muscle disuse altered the skeletal muscle metabolome, lipidome and transcriptome in middle-aged adults. We report that the energy metabolism pathways: Nicotinate and nic...

Dr. Sean Kilroe has published his first paper as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab. He used a multi-omics approach to outline which metabolic pathways are impacted in human skeletal muscle in response to physical inactivity.

journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Dr. Reuben Shaw from the Salk Institute will be joining us in San Antonio this week!

Constitutively Active mTORC1 Signaling Modifies the Skeletal Muscle Metabolome and Lipidome Response to Exercise | Journal of Applied Physiology | American Physiological Society A chronic increase in mTORC1 signaling is implicated in reduced longevity, altered metabolism, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Abnormal mTORC1 signaling may also be involved in the etiology of sarcopen...

Anya Kalenta, a final year PhD student in the lab, has published the first paper from her dissertation. Congratulations Anya!!

journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Dr. Troy Hornberger is in San Antonio today. We are excited to hear about mTORC1 activation by muscle contraction.

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Brian Finck to San Antonio this week.

Is there an alternative to senolytics to remove senescent cells? Take a look at our new publication in Aging Cell where we collaborated with the late Mike Sheetz lab to Rejuvenate Senescent Cells with low frequency ultrasound.

t.co/Ts704MWIqZ

Resistance exercise training in older men reduces ATF4-activated and senescence-associated mRNAs in skeletal muscle - GeroScience Sarcopenia increases the risk of frailty, morbidity, and mortality in older adults. Resistance exercise training improves muscle size and function; however, the response to exercise training is variab...

New publication from the lab in GeroScience. Resistance exercise does some nice things to muscle in older men including reducing markers of stress, inflammation and cellular senescence.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Deeply saddened by the passing of Prof. Mike Sheetz, a true leader in Mechanobiology. His groundbreaking work on Kinesin, membrane organization, and mechanotransduction has left an indelible mark. A tremendous loss to science. #Mechanobiology #Science #LaskerAward

We are happy to welcome Dr. Jun Liu from the Mayo Clinic to UT Health San Antonio today.

Looking forward to hearing from Dr. Ben Miller today at UT Health San Antonio

We are looking forward to having John Thyfault in San Antonio this week.

go.bsky.app/S4DM57n