Anthony Hessel, PhD
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hesselanthony.bsky.social
Anthony Hessel, PhD
@hesselanthony.bsky.social
Muscle physiologist at Uni of Muenster. Founder, Accelerated Muscle Biotechnologies. Dog foster / diva boston terrier parent. My wife tolerates me well. He/him.🥼🧪🔬💪♥️ #MyoBlue #NoKing
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
First preprint from my PhD!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We show that piperine:
1️⃣ increases ON myosin in resting skeletal muscle.

2️⃣ enhances dynamic contractility 3️⃣ in a muscle-type-dependent manner

@hesselanthony.bsky.social
Piperine activates the thick filament of resting rat skeletal muscle, enhancing dynamic contractility in a fiber-type-dependent manner
Thick-filament activation, whereby myosin heads transition from an OFF to an ON state, is a key regulatory step in muscle contraction and a promising therapeutic target. The availability of ON-state m...
www.biorxiv.org
November 27, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
In February 2025, Aurora Scientific formed a strategic partnership with Accelerated Muscle Biotechnologies (AMB). Watch this video interview with Anthony Hessel, PhD and Khoi Nguyen, PhD from AMB, and our own Chris Rand to learn about our partnership!

https://bit.ly/asi-amb-partnership-interview
November 26, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
New #PNASNews paper: Exercise suppresses DEAF1 to normalize mTORC1 activity and reverse muscle aging. #Myoblue tinyurl.com/y5rayxmz
Exercise suppresses DEAF1 to normalize mTORC1 activity and reverse muscle aging | PNAS
Skeletal muscle is essential for movement, respiration, and metabolism, with mTORC1 acting as a key regulator of protein synthesis and degradation....
tinyurl.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
Our collaborative effort unravelled puzzling results warranted more research on the topic of myosin and cardiac chamber specificities @ucph.bsky.social
Cardiac Chamber‐Specific Regulation of Myosin Biochemical Super‐Relaxation and Auto‐Inhibition
The combination of Mant-ATP (2′-(or-3′)-O-(N-Methylanthraniloyl) Adenosine 5′-Triphosphate) chase experiments and all-atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, revealed that myosin auto-inhibition an...
faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 22, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Top recommendation for this post doc opportunity from my PhD lab group. Great mentor, lab, place to live. Amazing projects and an unusual amount of funding.
November 22, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
How great is the HPV vaccine?

It can even ⬇️ the risk of cervical cancer when given after precancerous cells are found.

I wonder why RFK Jr isn't talking about this study.🤔

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Early and long-term effects of prophylactic and post-excision human papillomavirus vaccination on recurrent high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia relative to margin status: a retrospective coh...
Regardless of timing, HPV vaccination has a beneficial long-term effect in lowering the risk of CIN2+ recurrence. Despite the greater reduction in relapse achieved by post-excision vaccination, the di...
www.thelancet.com
November 6, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
Excited to share our preprint using time-resolved small-angle X-ray diffraction to study myosin motor conformations during isometric twitch and tetanus contractions in the slow-twitch rat soleus skeletal muscle #myoblue
October 15, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
We are looking for an enthusiastic MD or PhD to work on a postdoc project on the molecular mechanisms underlying human hibernating myocardium and ischemic cardiomyopathy. If interested send me an email! #heart #cardiomyopathy #sarcomere
14 postdoctoral fellowships to the BRIDGE – Translational Excellence Programme
employment.ku.dk
September 29, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
Excited to share the first paper from my PhD!

We looked at what traits help Aneides salamanders excel at climbing using museum specimens, CT scans, SEM, and more! No claws or toe pads, so how do they do it? In short, with long limbs, big feet and grippy toes! 🦎🧪

DM for PDF

doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
August 28, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
This new #Methods article evaluates #freeze-drying to #RNAlater and three RNAlater-ICE-based protocols for #skeletal #muscle #biopsy tissue preservation for subsequent manual isolation of #fibers and other downstream applications.
doi.org/10.14814/phy...
#Physiology #MyoBlue
doi.org
September 16, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Calling all BPS member / interested muscle people!!!

Sam Harris is spearheading a push towards make a new muscle subgroup at the Biophysical Society.

*Signatures from active members are needed*, but anyone with an interest can sign.

Please help the cause!
www.change.org/p/establish-...
Sign the Petition
Establish a Dedicated Cardiac and Skeletal Muscle Research Subgroup Within The Biophysical Society
www.change.org
August 21, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
Congrats to Brent Scott from the Greenberg lab for this new paper on danicamtiv's mechanism of action.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Excited to see our FiberSim code being put to such good use.
campbell-muscle-lab.github.io/FiberSim/
Danicamtiv reduces myosin’s working stroke but activates the thin filament by accelerating actomyosin attachment | PNAS
Heart failure is a leading cause of death worldwide, and even with current treatments, the 5-y transplant-free survival rate is only ~50 to 70%. As...
www.pnas.org
August 20, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
Can you really repair an engine while it's running? 👩🏽‍🔧

The heart can. 💪🏼🫀

Our latest @faseborg.bsky.social paper shows how the protein 'CapZ' helps heart muscle to keep running during exercise. ⛹🏼‍♀️🏊‍♂️

#Exercise #Heart #Muscle #BasicScience #Cardiology

faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1096/...
Cardiac CapZ Regulation During Acute Exercise in Female Mice
CapZ regulates actin addition at the barbed ends of sarcomeric actin. At rest, phosphorylated CapZIP slows addition, and dephosphorylated CapZIP promotes a wobble state to allow actin cycling. During...
faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
August 20, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
Global study: 2.08M people, 133 cohorts, 39 countries, 6 continents. 5 risk factors influence 50% of lifetime cardiovascular disease risk. PMID:40162648, N Engl J Med 2025, @NEJM https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2415879 #Medsky #Pharmsky #RNA #ASHG #ESHG 🧪
https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2415879
No description available
doi.org
August 16, 2025 at 12:10 PM
This may be a bit strongly worded. Some people took initiative to write grants even when in a secure post doc. Some wrote grants that were tailored-made to be impactful/career boosting. IMHO, no problem with career strategy in an ultra competitive funding landscape. Wayyy more deserve than spots.
Academia is basically a collection of people who got lucky early on and mistook it for genius. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
August 5, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Yes! NIAMS and NHLBI as well!
3. The POs for NIGMS and NIA have been phenomenal (as well as NIBIB, which is an aspiration for us). They have been very calm and reassuring, even as I know that their individual lives are very challenging. We are very lucky to have these staff and should be fighting for them whenever possible. 4/n
August 5, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
Y’all!!! Our comparative anatomy textbook is out!!! Free, open access, and just in time for the fall semester!
New Comparative Anatomy Textbook! Completely free to read and open access!

doi.org/10.59319/YHF...
July 31, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
"The successful candidate will have expertise in area(s) related to cardiovascular physiology, metabolic regulation and dysregulation, and/or hormonal mechanisms that maintain homeostasis, with a focus on aging."
Our department at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada) is running two faculty searches. One is a joint hire with the Institute for Healthy Aging, one a cohire with the Math Dept cps.med.ubc.ca/careers-2/ Click on “Faculty Positions” on the page. Please help spread the word!
Careers | Department of Cellular & Physiological Sciences
cps.med.ubc.ca
July 30, 2025 at 6:06 PM
All scientists need to be doing more of this and posting on all types of social media platforms (not just on the echo chamber communities). We must get better at communicating our science in a fun and effective way to a broad audience or tax payers/ voters.
Tasty but invasive: Golden oyster mushrooms threaten forest biodiversity and fragile ecosystems already stressed by climate change. @uwmadison.bsky.social fungi expert Aishwarya Veerabahu reveals the dark side of escaped mushrooms
🧪 🌱 #mushrooms #mushroomhunting
July 18, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
Day of Action planned for July 21 to protect science protectscienceandinnovation.org
Protect Science and Innovation
protectscienceandinnovation.org
July 15, 2025 at 4:16 AM
NIH moves towards alternatives to animal models, in line with the shift in the EU. This is not bad policy in principal but not yet always feasible on technical grounds. It's important to continue searching for "muscles in a dish" that are of quality for Xray diffraction. Who wants to collab?
July 13, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
nothing would make me happier than US science returning to the amazing and transformational legacy of success and dominance

but if that's not possible, we need other places with the vision to take over as the pacesetter

humanity's long term success demands no less
Are you a top US-based scientist wanting to relocate to Australia? We are now calling for formal applications from both Australian and non-Australian citizens based in the US whose work is internationally recognised as exceptional.
📅 Applications close: Aug 29, 2025
🔗 science.org.au/gtap/?utm_so...
July 12, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
I was delighted to accept the King Charles III Coronation Medal for my lab's research & advocacy for women's heart health.🫀💃🏻

We appreciate the support of IMPART at @dalhousie.bsky.social & @womensresearch.bsky.social, & were grateful to be nominated by the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada.
July 10, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Reposted by Anthony Hessel, PhD
Damien M. Callahan presents this #TranslationalPerspective on the work of Laitila et al. linking altered structure and post-translational modification of Troponin T to dystonia in nemaline myopathies💭 ✍️

🔗 physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/...
July 2, 2025 at 1:04 PM