Ronald Cohn, Assistant professor of pediatrics and neurology in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore City, received a 2008 New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and a $1.5 million grant for research costs during five years.
Cohn, a Baltimore resident, studies muscle-wasting diseases including muscular dystrophy by looking at squirrel hibernation in hopes of finding new treatments for muscle-wasting diseases.
His goal is to gain a better understanding of how to treat and possibly stop muscle wasting from aging, disuse and muscle disorders by learning about the satellite cell behavior of hibernating animals.
“I have been interested in muscle biology for many years, but the fascinating phenomenon of hibernation enables us to approach maintenance of muscle mass in a completely new way,” Cohn said. “The animals I’m going to study don’t move for months during hibernation, and don’t even breathe more than four times a minute. How do they jump up and run around after they wake up, having maintained their muscle?”
