Yu-Chiang Lai, a postdoc in Miratul Muqit’s lab at the MRC PPU, has been awarded a Birmingham Fellowship to establish his lab, aiming to understand the molecular mechanism of skeletal muscle atrophy and how exercise can improve health. The fellowship scheme in the University of Birmingham aims to attract high potential, early-career researchers to undertake high quality research in any academic discipline. All Fellows are given five years of protected time to focus on their research, followed by a permanent academic post at any level, performance depending, within the University.
Yu-Chiang was a swimmer in Taiwan and did his PhD at the Norwegian School of Sport Science. He undertook his first postdoc training at the de Duve Institute, Belgium, with the support of a de Duve postdoctoral fellowship award. He joined Miratul’s lab in the summer of 2014 to study the signaling mechanisms of PINK1 kinase, whose activity is disrupted in an autosomal-recessive form of Parkinson’s disease. During this time Yu-Chiang has identified a number of Rab proteins as novel down-stream substrates of PINK1. While working in the MRC PPU, he was inspired by the Unit’s research programmes studying the role of protein ubiquitylation, particularly the work of Satpal Virdee's lab applying chemical/synthetic biology. These innovative developments have significant capabilities in understanding complex molecular networks. The underlying mechanisms of muscle atrophy, which involve the ubiquitin proteasome system, are poorly characterised. In his future work, Yu-Chiang will explore the physiological role of the ubiquitin system in muscle metabolism, and translate basic science to clinical research by employing techniques to analyse human samples that are well established at Birmingham University.
Miratul Muqit, Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Research Fellow and Yu-Chiang’s supervisor commented, “I congratulate Yu-Chiang on this appointment which will allow him to establish his independent group in Birmingham. During his post-doc at the MRC PPU, he made the important discovery that the PINK1 kinase can regulate as subset of Rab GTPases via phosphorylation of a conserved C-terminal Serine residue. This has opened up a new avenue of research for the lab. Given, his background in signalling and muscle, I am sure his focus on ubiquitylation mechanisms will reveal new knowledge on the physiological processes governing muscle homeostasis.”
MRC PPU Director, Dario Alessi, stated, “I would like to congratulate Yu-Chiang Lai with being awarded a prestigious group leader position at the University of Birmingham. Yu-Chiang has done a lot of important work in Miratul Muqit’s lab in the MRC PPU and in Mark Rider’s lab in Brussels before. The project that Yu-Chiang wants to work on to understand how muscle contraction impacts on the ubiquitylation system is exciting and has high potential to yield important results. As an Alumni of Birmingham University myself, I am also very pleased that they have selected Yu-Chiang who is a talented and very hard-working researcher who I am confident will do really well in Birmingham.”
Commenting on his award Yu-Chiang said, “I am very excited about running my own research group. I will be the first Birmingham Fellow based in the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences as my origin inspiration in research is to understand the beneficial effects of exercise. What I have learned here in the MRC PPU will enable me to answer key scientific questions at the molecular level. I extremely appreciate the mentoring assistance of Miratul and Dario and also would like to thank everyone in the Unit, colleagues in the SLS and further afield, for all their support and encouragement.”