Professor Alan Hayes

Professor Alan Hayes is the Deputy Director of the Australian Institute for Musculoskeletal Sciences (AIMSS) and has made a number of important contributions to the application of exercise and dietary supplements in muscle disease and dysfunction.

Current projects focus on:

• effects of dietary supplements on skeletal muscle
• improving ageing muscle & developing models of sarcopenia
• delaying severity and/or improving function in muscular dystrophy
• reducing the impact of sarcopenia and prostate cancer with exercise.

Alan was one of the first to examine exercise in models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy demonstrating beneficial effects, even in older animals. He was the first person to explore the potential therapeutic benefits of b₂-agonists (such a clenbuterol) as a treatment for muscular dystrophy, sparking a wave of research into other b₂-agonists, and other anabolic compounds as treatment strategies for muscular wasting conditions.

In 1997 Alan began his career at Victoria University (VU) and received a Vice Chancellor’s Citation for Teaching Excellence in 2000. He expanded his research to be inclusive of the importance of muscle mass and function in a variety of health conditions, becoming Head of the Exercise Metabolism Unit in 2003.

Alan published seminal papers on the effect of the timing of protein supplementation on resistance exercise-induced increases in skeletal muscle mass and strength. This work won a Victorian State Government award for Applied Research.

Professor Hayes was one of the first to propose, and then directly demonstrate, that mitochondria are a major contributor to the deleterious phenotype of muscular dystrophy, with this research leading to the commencement of numerous clinical trials addressing mitochondrial dysfunction and metabolic dysfunction in various myopathies.

Alan played a pivotal role in designing a unique three-way research partnership between The University of Melbourne (UoM), VU and Western Health at Sunshine Hospital.

He was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Citation for Research Excellence in Research Supervision in 2011, made an Honorary Associate Professor with the Department of Medicine at UoM in 2016 and promoted to Professor at VU in 2017.

His recent work has shed light on our understanding of the complex interplay between protein synthesis and muscle wasting in human prostate cancer patients. His current work focuses on the risk factors associated with the loss of bone mass, muscle mass and muscle strength with ageing that is leading to new treatment options and/or or prevention strategies.