Sarah Blackwood

My research interests focus on skeletal muscle carbohydrate metabolism and how it is regulated in various different states; such as muscle contraction/exercise, hormonal regulation and disease states.

In my early career (PhD) I focused on the influence of changing microvascular blood flow on skeletal muscle metabolism and its role in insulin action and T2D, in both human and rodents. Later as a postdoc I moved into exercise physiology focused work investigating the regulation of glycogen breakdown, glycogen synthesis and glucose transport in isolated rodent muscle preparations.

Since moving to GIH I have focused on human based studies looking again at the importance of muscle carbohydrate metabolism, specifically determining the role of skeletal muscle fiber type in insulin sensitivity to greater understand insulin action in muscle and how this relates to the development of type 2 diabetes.

Current projects

1. Use of muscle contractile properties to identify individuals exhibiting insulin resistance2. Role of muscle fiber composition in development of lipid-mediated insulin resistance3. Role of myokines in enhancing glucose-stimulated insulin secretion4. Methods to maximize analyses of muscle analytes in small biopsy samples.
2. Role of muscle fiber composition in development of lipid-mediated insulin resistance.
3. Role of myokines in enhancing glucose-stimulated insulin secretion.
4. Methods to maximize analyses of muscle analytes in small biopsy samples.
   

Representative publications

• Sarah J. Blackwood, Baptiste Jude, Theresa Mader, Johanna T. Lanner and Abram Katz. Role of nitration in control of phosphorylase and glycogenolysis in mouse skeletal muscle. The Am. J. Physiol. Endocrinol. Metab. 2021. 2021 Apr 1; 320(4):E691-E701. doi.org/10.1152/ajpendo.00506.2020
• Sarah J. Blackwood and Abram Katz. Isoproterenol enhances force production in mouse glycolytic and oxidative muscle via separate mechanisms. Pflugers Archiv : European journal of physiology, 2019.Pflugers Arch. 2019 Oct; 471(10):1305-1316.doi: 10.1007/s00424-019-02304-0.
• Sarah J. Blackwood, Renee M. Dwyer, Eloise A. Bradley, Michelle A. Keske, Stephen M. Richards, Stephen Rattigan. Determination of skeletal muscle microvascular flowmotion with novel contrast enhanced ultrasound technique. Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 2017. doi.org/10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2017.05.012
  

Current and potential financiers

The Åke Wiberg Foundation