Doctor Busy
In a podcast he took part in, he was introduced with terms such as ‘the fastest director of AMS (Amsterdam Movement Sciences)’, ‘arrived on a surfboard from Meppel, moored on De Boelelaan’, and as ‘Doctor Busy’.
In the interview we held at the start of October, he talks about his passion for the discipline of Human Movement Sciences. He tells us that as a student, he wasn’t quite so enthusiastic, but he really became driven during his time as a PhD student. ‘I was in the lab until late in the evenings, because you can grow muscle cells at any time.’ Prof. Richard T. Jaspers talks about what he’s proud of and how he has entered into all kinds of scientific collaborations.
The CV of Prof. Richard T. Jaspers, with a point-by-point summary of Positions, Memberships, Awards, Grants and Scientific Publications, comprises no less than 18 pages. And his profile on the VU Research Portal also reveals a substantial track record.
That’s an impressive list! How did your career get started?
I began with a student assistantship at the Myological Laboratory, where I focused on the structure of rat muscles. After my graduation and a gap year, I began my PhD research into the regulation of muscle length and muscle strength, which I have continued since then. The fascinating thing about muscle fibre is that it can quickly adapt to the load placed upon it. Later, as an assistant professor, I also started teaching.
What do you like about contact with students?
I enjoy telling them about the research: what we’ve discovered, where we stand and where the new challenges lie. It’s important to make students aware that the basic knowledge we gain here really is used in medical science and in sport.
What’s your mission?
My mission is to use insight into the molecular mechanisms of muscle development and adaption to develop interventions for promoting physical fitness, both for people with medical conditions and for athletes.
Ever since my early adolescence, I have been fascinated by human movement and understanding how to improve physical performance of patients and athletes. As a human movement scientist, I have developed myself in physiology, anatomy and molecular biology, with particular interest in mechanical and metabolic properties of skeletal muscle and adaptation thereof. In typical muscle, the force generating capacity is regulated with high sensitivity relative to the functional demands experienced in daily life. In case of chronic disease of the cardiovascular and respiratory system, during aging or in neurological diseases such regulation is compromised. In contrast, in (top)sports, adaptation of skeletal is stimulated to yield extreme performances. In my research I aim to uncover mechanisms underlying the regulation of muscle adaptation and to translate this knowledge into strategies to improve movement performance. We investigate physico-chemical and metabolic cues for adaptation of size and oxidative capacity of muscle cells and how these cues are transduced into biochemical signaling for cell proliferation and differentiation? My research is both basic and applied at different biological scales. We use in vitro cell models and animal models, and study musculoskeletal tissue performance in the human body. I collaborate with basic scientists, sport coaches and with physicians in rehabilitation, orthopedics, internal medicine, sports medicine.
Through the years my research has extended to other tissues and organs such as bone, the central nervous system, and the immune system. As muscle tissue interacts mechanically and biochemically with other organ systems, we started to investigate how communication between these tissues determines physical fitness and how such insight can be translated into effective training programs and exercise mimetics.
How did you come to collaborate with doctors?
It started with a children’s hospital in Basel, even while I was still working on graduating: a project in which we researched the effects of a surgical intervention to lengthen spastic muscles. This collaboration is still ongoing. Then collaborations began with the Child Rehabilitation department of Amsterdam UMC and subsequently with the Orthopaedics and Reconstructive Surgery department. All these collaborations have been extended over the years. From 2005 onward, after my PhD research, we were given access to an ultrasound machine. And so we began applying ultrasound imaging to children with spastic paresis. With the help of this 3D imaging, we can now render visible the structure of the calf muscles and hamstrings. To begin with we didn’t know what was wrong with these muscles in children with this disorder, or how we could treat it. My research was focused on making these muscles longer. Using the knowledge we had acquired in the experiments on laboratory animals, we learned how muscles can adapt to changing loads, and now we’re bringing this knowledge into the practical field.
The research on mice and rats enables doctors to adjust their treatments, for instance by making different decisions about whether to conduct an operation, or using a particular treatment only for certain patients.
How do you enter into a research project?
When fundamental research is involved, you go deeper step by step. In order to understand how muscles adapt, we’ve had to delve deep into molecular biology and we’ve engaged in targeted collaboration with other labs to learn new techniques. We now have a range of molecular techniques at our disposal. Plans for an applied research project take shape in discussion with doctors, athletes and coaches. Prompted by concrete questions from the professional field, we have developed various analytical methods that give us information about the muscles of patients and athletes. One important question both for the rehabilitation of heart patients and for athletes is how you can train muscle strength and stamina simultaneously. The molecular regulation of these two processes makes it difficult to do them at the same time. The combination of fundamental and applied research has led to several possible strategies that do actually enable this to a certain degree.
How do you enter into a collaboration with other researchers?
Congresses, as well as meetings at research institutes, are good places for getting to know other scientists with good ideas. Then you visit each other. This is how I’ve come to visit fellow researchers in Paris, Manchester, Germany, Switzerland and at Harvard. Then I take along tissue and all kinds of equipment with me, and we carry out experiments together. These collaborations often lead to joint publications.
What does your lab work involve?
My work in the lab is really diverse. We analyse muscle biopsies by cutting thin slices off these and then carrying out a histochemical analysis, enabling us to establish the properties of the muscle fibres. Then we grow muscle fibres to find out the optimum conditions for letting a muscle fibre become longer and thicker. The length of muscle fibres dictates how strong a muscle is. In order to find the optimum conditions we prepare a single fibre under the microscope. This is a precision task where you use ophthalmic surgeon’s scissors to cut apart muscle fibres less than a tenth of a millimetre in thickness, and in the process you mustn’t touch the target fibre. Then, you hang it up in an incubator using really miniscule hooks. In the following process, you need to keep the muscle fibre alive and to stretch it and expose it to chemical substances (hormones, growth factors, cytokines). We now know how we can cause a muscle fibre to grow quickly in diameter and stronger without training, but so far, no one has managed to lengthen a muscle fibre in culture.
Is this latter factor still the challenge?
Yes, it’s still a challenge to stimulate muscle fibres to become longer by doing something to the muscle tissue. This may well remain a dream. We’ve worked hard at it in the lab. Nonetheless, this research is valuable and satisfying, because we’ve discovered some very interesting things.
First, for instance, when we cut out and stretch a muscle fibre, the fibre doesn’t perceive the mechanical stimuli that are actually received in the body. So apparently the environment and the connection with the environment are vitally important for perceiving the mechanical signals.
And moreover, if we add a biochemical signal, a substance such as an anabolic factor, then the fibre gets thicker and stronger day by day. But the fibre never gets longer. If you stretch a muscle in the body for a longer period, then a muscle can indeed grow longer. So what are we lacking in the incubation system that we actually have in the body?
To what extent are the research results applicable in real life?
Carrying out in-depth fundamental research can provide research results that can be used for medical applications, and in the sports world as well. Exploring the incubator systems has revealed to us that it’s difficult to achieve strength and stamina at the same time. This shows there are limitations for athletes and also for people with heart problems.
How are the research results of use to athletes?
Athletes benefit from scientific insights. If you become stronger in your sporting performance, then you’ll experience a loss of stamina. And if you train your stamina, you’ll lose muscle strength, your muscles become thinner. So as an athlete you can take this into account during your training. If a muscle consists of thick fibres, it means that oxygen is less available within the fibre as a whole. Then you need to promote the oxygen supply, such as by raising the level of EPO in the blood, and so increasing the number of red blood cells. Another option is to create more blood vessels in the muscle, or to stimulate the production of myoglobin in the muscles.
How are your various research projects funded?
VU Amsterdam provides the most important facilities for scientific research, of course, such as the laboratory. In addition, we receive fantastic support from our analysts at TO3. Then we have our colleagues at the electronic and mechanical workshop, who make superb equipment and build unique arrays for all kinds of experiments within the research projects.
In addition, each researcher has to apply for their own funding for a research project, for instance from funds and from the commercial sector. If we aim to conduct research for sports applications, we have different grant sources than for applications in rehabilitative medicine for treating spastic muscles.
Scientific publications are an important means of gaining recognition and esteem for scientific activity. Nowadays, there’s also more scope for valorisation and for putting scientific knowledge into practice. Research remains important, but these days it’s not just the number of publications and the impact factors that count.
How have you experienced VU Amsterdam as an employer, over these 25 years?
VU Amsterdam has been a very good employer. I’m grateful for the opportunities I have been given. A great deal of collaboration is possible in the fields of physiology and rehabilitation, for instance with the biopsies from the Amsterdam UMC Physics Team. It’s great that the VU campus can provide us with equipment and research opportunities.
There have also been times when we’ve constantly had to struggle for the next appointment; I, too, lived through some uncertain times at the start of my career, but this is also inherent in the life of a researcher. It’s certainly not the case that after graduating you get offered a job for the rest of your life, you definitely have to keep proving yourself. And demonstrating that your work is of value. The zeitgeist keeps shifting, too: now it’s about valorisation, while previously it was about ‘from cell to human’.
What things are you proud of?
I’m proud of the results of my research projects. I’m proud of how I’ve been able to reveal mechanisms through my fundamental research: by examining gene expression, and looking at the DNA and at how a cell can adapt at the micro level. That after years of plugging away at fundamental research – and not knowing where it will take you – we’ve been able to convert this knowledge into practical applications. That we’ve been able to translate this to both sport and the clinics. Now PSV Eindhoven, the Swimming Federation and hospitals are all asking for our advice. It’s nice to get this recognition for my work, and it’s stimulating. At the moment, I and a small team within our department are engaged in further developing the 3D ultrasound method for scanning muscles. We’re bringing this to market, and now it’s being picked up all over the world; that’s fantastic!
How do you see the coming 25 years?
I’d like to collaborate with a pharmacist to research the pharmacological aspects, such as muscle-strengthening medication to strengthen spastic muscles or for people with muscular dystrophy.
How did you celebrate your 25th anniversary at VU Amsterdam?
We celebrated with a modest round of drinks for a small group, with the hard core so to speak. Not a lot was possible during the pandemic. In earlier times we would have celebrated these milestones with a much bigger event. I’ve had plenty to celebrate this year: my appointment as professor, 25 years in employment, and I also celebrated my 50th birthday, so that was a nice collection of festivities. And on 24 June next year, I’ll be giving my inaugural lecture, which I’m looking forward to as well.
Podcast on fundamental research
Would you like to hear more about Richard Jaspers?
>>You can also listen to the podcast made as part of the anniversary events for 50 years of Human Movement Sciences, in which Richard Jaspers and Dinant Kistemaker talk about fundamental research.