The Precision Rehabilitation and Innovation in CardioMetabolic Health (PRIME) Lab team studies innovative and precision rehabilitation strategies to enhance cardiometabolic health. Through their studies, they aim to determine how exercise mode, frequency, intensity, and concomitant therapies (nutritional, pharmacologic, gene therapy) modulate physiologic and molecular mediators of cardiometabolic function, primarily focusing on the substrate (e.g., amino acid, glucose, fatty acid) metabolism, energetic, and functional abnormalities in skeletal muscle and heart.
Led by Todd Cade, PT, PhD, Division Chief, Doctor of Physical Therapy Program, and Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery, the team's current research techniques include – Exercise testing (VO2); Isokinetic dynamometry (strength); Indirect calorimetry; Body composition (DXA/BodPod); Glucose tolerance (OGTT); Stable isotope tracers; Cardiac/SM energetics (MRS); Muscle/fat biopsies; Cardiac fx (echo); Vascular fx (small and large vessel); and, Cardiac metabolism (PET).