Lifestyle
The Neuromuscular Group
The Neuromuscular group at the RVC was formed in January 2010 with the appointment of Dr Sue Brown and Professor Dominic Wells. Together with Dr Richard Piercy they share a communal laboratory, group office and weekly lab meetings. The group’s emphasis is on function of the neuromuscular system in health and disease and in development of treatments for dysfunction. The group has a number of collaborative research programmes but each PI also has a specific focus of interest as follows:
Professor Wells works on the development, testing and translation of treatments for neuromuscular disorders with particular emphasis on Duchenne muscular dystrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Dr Brown works on interactions of muscle and nerve with the extracellular matrix. Current research is focussed on understanding and developing models and treatments for the dystroglycanopathies, a set of muscular dystrophies with reduced glycosylation of alpha dystroglycan, a key component of the dystrophin associated protein complex.
Dr Piercy is a veterinary clinician and Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine who works on the molecular and cellular biology of neuromuscular diseases in veterinary species with particular emphasis on diseases in dogs and horses. He heads the Comparative Neuromuscular Diseases Laboratory at the RVC.
Members of the Neuromuscular group have numerous collaborations with other members of the Royal Veterinary College and other UK and overseas academics and clinicians including the MRC Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases.