Niall Moyna is a professor of clinical exercise physiology at DCU. He undertook is undergraduate degree at the University of Limerick, and completed his graduate studies at Purdue University, and the University of Pittsburgh in the US. He completed a three-year National Institute of Health Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in immunology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre. He was Director of the Clinical Exercise Research Laboratory in the Division of Cardiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre and later moved to Connecticut to take a position as a Senior Research Scientist in Nuclear and Preventive Cardiology at Hartford Hospital.
Prof Moyna’s research is focused on exercise in the prevention of treatment of chronic disease and on the role of gene polymorphisms in helping to explain interindividual variability in biological responses to exercise. To date, he has published over 120 studies in international peer review journals. Current studies are examining the role of exercise in coronary heart disease, heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, cystic fibrosis, cancer, lung transplantation and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. Niall is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and the Faculty of Public Health Medicine. He has a keen interest in sport.
‘Stone age genes and space age technology – Impact on human health’, June 2019
The human genome has been evolutionary programmed for physical activity. This is because our genes evolved from Paleolithic stone-age hunters and gathers where daily physical activity was an integral, obligatory aspect of their existence and linked to survival. Advances in technology is engineering physical activity out of our lives. Even though our LIFESPAN has increased, the increase in sedentary lifestyle is contributing to a large increase in non-communicable diseases and a reduction in HEALTHSPAN. On the other hand, we are on the precipice of a medical revolution based on smart phone technology that has the capacity to democratize medicine and have far-reaching positive health benefits across the lifespan.
