An Appalachian State University professor is performing cutting edge research. Dr. David Nieman, who occasionally works with some big names in sports, is really making a mark. Keep an eye on what this guy is doing.
Via BooneWeb; the Salisbury Post has the story:
KANNAPOLIS — When they begin work this month in their new laboratory at the N.C. Research Campus, scientists from Appalachian State University will take the stairs.
“How would it look if people saw us in the elevator?” said Dr. David Nieman, the director of the ASU Human Performance Lab who has run 58 marathons and ultramarathons.
His lieutenant in Kannapolis, Dr. Andy Shanely, insists his boss is joking.
But Shanely, an avid runner and cyclist himself, takes the stairs anyway.
Appalachian State will study exercise and nutrition at the Research Campus, a $1.5 billion biotechnology complex founded by Dole Food Co. owner David Murdock.
Nieman and Shanely are the first ASU scientists on the scene and still seem in awe of their surroundings.
“This is off the scale,” Shanely said. “I don’t know any metric to measure what we have here.”
Appalachian leases 5,200 square feet on the first and second floors of N.C. State University’s Plants for Human Health Institute. The school will search for plant molecules that can improve health and test them in human subjects.
After years of research at the main campus in Boone, ASU scientists have discovered molecules like quercetin in red grapes can help people stay healthy while under stress. Scientists create stress with heavy exertion.
To accommodate 10 treadmills and 10 stationary bikes and the 20 sweaty exercisers who will use them at the Research Campus, ASU beefed up the ventilation system in the Kannapolis lab. A roomful of carbon dioxide, exhaled during exertion, can skew test results, Nieman said.
Crews should finish upfitting the lab this week, and ASU could begin recruiting human subjects—as many as 80 cyclists—this spring. Subjects are paid, but Nieman doesn’t know yet how much.
Appalachian is close to sealing a deal with “a private beverage company,” Nieman said, although he declined to give details.
The company would fund a project to determine the benefits of quercetin and EGCG, or green tea extract, in liquid form.