Professor Glenn McConell

Glenn has an internationally recognised research track record in exercise metabolism. His research focuses on glucose metabolism and exercise. This includes examining the factors regulating skeletal muscle glucose uptake during exercise and how exercise increases insulin sensitivity. He has also been examining whether exercise early in life can prevent the insulin resistance associated with being born small for gestational age or having an obese father. More recently, he has been examining whether exercise can overcome the insulin resistance caused by shift work. These studies involve humans (tracer methodologies, femoral artery-vein measurements, skeletal muscle biopsies), cell culture, rats and genetically modified mice (ex vivo and in vivo).

Glenn graduated with his PhD from the Department of Physiology at The University of Melbourne. He then worked in the Department of Physiology at Monash University for eight years and then completed a further seven years at the Department of Physiology at The University of Melbourne. In 2010 he moved to Victoria University as the inaugural Research Leader in Exercise Science. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports at the University of Copenhagen (in 2018 ranked number 1 in the world for Exercise and Sports Science). He spent five weeks there in 2013, six months in 2016 and six months in 2019 (as a Danish Diabetes Academy Visiting Professor, working with Professor Erik Richter).