November 29, 2021
Melissa Bates to present Anatomy and Physiology Seminar
Melissa Bates, assistant professor in the health and human physiology department at the University of Iowa, will present "What do premature infants and older adults with multiple myeloma have in common?" for the Anatomy and Physiology Seminar at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 30, in the Mara Conference Center, 407 Trotter Hall.
Bates will discuss the unique ways that the cardiovascular and hematopoietic systems are influenced by changes in oxygen tension and how this relates to disease risk. While oxygen is fundamental to life, changing oxygen tensions present tremendous stress to adult and juvenile physiology. This stress is influenced by both the oxygen tension (hypoxia and hyperoxia) and the pattern (fixed versus cyclic). A major theme of her research is understanding the impact of hypoxia and hyperoxia on physiological function.
Studies in Bates' lab focus on a couple of areas. 1) They have evaluated the impact of early life exposure to supplemental oxygen and intermittent hypoxia on cardiopulmonary and ventilatory function. They have demonstrated that humans born preterm have physiologically important changes to their ventilatory drive that manifest in hypoxia and with exercise. Early live supplemental oxygen exposure also increases sympathetic gain and stiffens the large conduit arteries. 2) Since opening her lab at the University of Iowa, they have developed models of chronic intermittent hypoxia in intact animals and cell culture to explore how intermittent hypoxia promotes cardiovascular and hematological disease. They are the first to demonstrate that chronic intermittent hypoxia is a driver of blood cancer and have generated excellent human and animal data to delineate the mechanism by which intermittent hypoxia changes the bone marrow.