Those finding it difficult to get off the couch might soon have an easier time thanks to a new form of exercise – packaged inside a pill called “exercise mimetics.”
Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, who has worked on the mimetic development project for nearly 10 years, will give a talk about the drug at the Beach Auditorium in the University Student Union on Wednesday at noon.
Evans earned the 2004 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the 2012 Wolf Prize in medicine.
“The key feature of our work, and something that’s been a Holy Grail in medicine, is the development of a drug that can confer the benefits of fitness without actually exercising,” Evans said.
Exercise mimetic drugs are designed to chemically mimic and produce the benefits of exercise in humans without any physical activity required from the drug-taker. The drugs, according to Evans, would help combat the high risks of obesity, including heart and cardiovascular disease in people with sedentary lifestyles.
Biochemistry professor Jeffrey Cohlberg said that the mimetic drug AICAR, a drug Evans experimented with for his project, is a naturally occurring compound that replenishes energy in the body by activating the enzyme AMPK, which changes the body’s metabolism.
“There are old [mimetic drugs], ones that got rejected,” Evans said. “There are definitely new ones coming along based on exactly the kind of molecular platforms that we described.”
Evans’ lecture is titled “Can Exercise Mimetics Substitute for Exercise?” The quick response to that question, Evans said, is not exactly.
“The goal is not to develop drugs that overcome your need to exercise,” Evans said. “It’s really to develop drugs for people who are unable to get sufficient exercise.”
Evans stressed that exercise should not be entirely substituted with the drug if a person is healthy enough to exercise. The drugs are designed to chemically provide additional power and the force behind physical exercise and healthier lifestyle changes.
The drugs work by targeting muscles in the same way that exercise stimulates the muscles, burning fat and enhancing performance even without exercise.
For the general talk session, Evans will give an overview on the topic of exercise mimetic drugs, including what they are and how they can improve human health as well as how microbiology is used to treat obesity and illnesses related to infrequent exercise.
Following the lecture will be an open meeting with a question and answer session at 2:30 p.m. in Hall of Science room 156 as well as a research seminar at 4 p.m. in Hall of Science room 101. Each event is free and expected to run approximately one hour.
Evans has researched at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1985 and is currently a professor at the Gene Expression Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He was the first to report on a newly discovered family of steroid molecular structures in a 1985 research paper, according to the Salk Institute’s website.
“He’s a very imminent biochemist,” Cohlberg said. “He’s even been mentioned as a possible future Nobel prize recipient.”
