2018 James Rae Day

Through her collaboration with hundreds of scientists from more than sixty academic and medical institutions in eleven different countries around the world, she has published over 130 scientific papers that show that a significant divide in risk factors for numerous complex diseases – such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, as well as healthy aging – can be linked to the genes inherited for low exercise performance versus high exercise performance.Dr. Lauren Gerard-Koch, PhD is an Associate Professor at The University of Toledo in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Center for Hypertension and Personalized Medicine.  Prior to her recent appointment at The University of Toledo, she was a tenured faculty member at the University of Michigan and worked as a pre-clinical scientist in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and in the Department of Anesthesiology. Dr. Koch has academic training in sports medicine, integrative physiology, and molecular genetics with a longtime interest in the strong association between physical activity and health benefits. She is internationally recognized for her scientific contribution of developing rat genetic models of exercise as a Resource for Biomedical Researchers.

Dr. Gerard-Koch’s current research focus is to determine the genetics that underlie individual differences for the effect of exercise on disease risks by developing exercise models of low response trainers and high response trainers.   Dr. Gerard-Koch is a dedicated basic science researcher who is passionate about integrating broad theoretical systems based biology into translational science.