Assistant Professor of Integrative Physiology
Appointed McNair Scholar March 2024
Dr. Michael Bround is a faculty member in the Department of Integrative Physiology at Baylor College of Medicine studying the biology of mitochondria, the metabolic powerhouse and biosynthetic forge of the cell. Dr. Bround earned his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia studying cardiac ryanodine receptor calcium channels and how they coordinate heart contraction with mitochondrial metabolism. Dr. Bround then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in the laboratory of Jeffery Molkentin, Ph.D., where he studied mitochondrial calcium signaling and mitochondria-dependent cell death in the heart and skeletal muscle. His recent research has focused on necrotic cell death in muscular dystrophy. He found that genetic inhibition of mitochondria-dependent cell death nearly eliminates all disease in a mouse model of muscular dystrophy, which suggests an exciting new therapeutic approach.
Dr. Bround’s lab works to better understand how cells communicate with mitochondria to optimize energy production, regulate mitochondrial quality control or to initiate pathological cell death processes. The objective of this research is to find ways to promote beneficial mitochondrial responses while preventing the activation of mitochondria-dependent cell death, which is a major driver of several significant human diseases, such as cardiac infarction, stroke, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and muscular dystrophy. The Bround Lab’s research into the molecular regulation of mitochondrial calcium homeostasis and the mitochondrial permeability transition pore will yield new insight into mitochondrial dysfunction, with the long-term goal of developing anti-necrotic therapies for muscular dystrophy, neurodegeneration and other human diseases.
