Appalachian takes off: Treadmills, bikes drive research on exercise and nutrition

BY EMILY FORD

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 that 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 recently finished upfitting the lab, 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.

Last year, PepsiCo announced plans for a 4,000-square-foot research and development lab in Kannapolis. Although campus observers have speculated that PepsiCo might collaborate with Appalachian State to boost the nutritional value of Gatorade, Nieman said he could not comment.

PepsiCo’s main competitor, Coca-Cola, along with Quercegen Pharma, gave Nieman’s team $1.6 million to study the effects of quercetin in 1,000 subjects. Nieman called the results exciting but said he could not reveal more yet.

ASU researchers want to understand how bioactive molecules in plants can influence immunity, inflammation, muscle mass and more while people are under stress. Nieman’s team is the first to study the effects of quercetin on muscle mitochondria in humans.

Nieman will split his time between Boone and Kannapolis, where he has four people on his team.

Exercise physiologist and dietician Margaret Downs West will coordinate the human performance lab in Kannapolis, where she now lives.

Dr. Fuxia Jin, a research chemist, will move her family to Kannapolis this summer. Dr. Amy Knab will join the team, with expertise in genetics, brain activity and animal behavior. She lives in Kannapolis as well.

Appalachian State is one of eight universities at the Research Campus, which Shanely calls a “brain trust.” He already has started collaborating with N.C. State and plans to work with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, another school in Kannapolis that studies bioactive compounds.