Dr Ashraf Gorgey, Chief of Spinal Cord Injury Research at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, will be visiting the Department for Health on Thursday 20th July.

As part of the Department Seminar series, Dr Gorgey will be presenting:

Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy and Metabolic Changes after Spinal Cord Injury

Thursday 20th July, 12.15pm

Room CB 4.5

Ashraf S. Gorgey, MPT, PhD, FACSM  is currently the Chief of Spinal Cord Injury Research at Hunter Holmes McGuire at VA Medical Center. He is also an Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He has a bachelor and master degrees in Physical Therapy. He acquired his PhD in Exercise Physiology in 2005 with special emphasis on electrical stimulation and muscle activation and fatigue from the University of Georgia. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan with special focus on studying the adaptations in body composition and metabolic profile after SCI. His research background is in Rehabilitation and Exercise Physiology with special interest in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). His research work has focused on investigating rehabilitation strategies that could improve the quality of life in individuals with SCI and minimize the SCI health related secondary complications.

Dr. Gorgey is primarily interested in applications of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) and the capability of utilizing as an exercise intervention to evoke skeletal muscle hypertrophy, favorable body composition and metabolic profiles in persons with chronic SCI.  He is also interested in understanding the cellular and molecular adaptations to unloading and hypertrophy. Dr. Gorgey has received a VA-RRD career development award (CDA2) studying the effects of NMES resistance and testosterone replacement therapy interventions on parameters of physical activities in persons with SCI including body composition, metabolic profile and mitochondrial health.  He is currently funded via DoD-CDRMP, VA Cooperative study program and National Science Foundation. His research has received a national and international recognition by different organization including Department of Veteran Affairs and Department of Defense. Dr. Gorgey has published close to 75 peer-reviewed articles in most of the prestigious Journals of rehabilitation and presented nationally as well as internationally in different scientific meetings.  Dr. Gorgey continues to successfully work with an excellent team of research scientists at the VA as well as in academia with different backgrounds.