Jack Senefeld.

Jack Senefeld, an assistant professor of kinesiology and community health and the director of the Lifetime Fitness Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has joined the Beckman Institute.

Senefeld’s research program focuses on advancing the understanding of nonpharmacological interventions like exercise to mitigate the detrimental effects of human aging and metabolic diseases. Specifically, his research program is interested in how skeletal muscle fatigue negatively influences exercise responses in older adults and people with diabetes, as well as how exercise training might improve these impaired responses. Senefeld’s research program is also interested in how sex-specific mechanisms contribute to the etiologies of muscle fatigue and the physiological processes that limit human performance.

In addition to his primary focus on the integrative response to exercise in humans, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Senefeld and his collaborators led a national program sponsored by the U.S. government to coordinate the collection and distribution of convalescent plasma for the treatment of individuals with COVID-19.

At the Beckman Institute, Senefeld will collaborate with colleagues Brad Sutton and Wawrzyniec Dobrucki to develop novel imaging sequences using multiparametric nuclear magnetic resonance imaging to examine accumulation of fatigue-causing metabolites (e.g., inorganic phosphate, hydrogen, and deprotonated phosphate) during dynamic exercise.

"At the intersection of these three roads — outstanding faculty within the Beckman community, our shared novel ideas on skeletal muscle physiology, and the comprehensive suite of technical capabilities and expertise to explore these ideas within the Beckman Institute — there is an enriched, collaborative opportunity to explore novel intellectual and translational opportunities. I am excited to join the Beckman community and contribute to the world-class research performed at the Beckman Institute," he said.