Innovations in Exercise Research — Ongoing Projects

Physicians and scientists at the UC Irvine Health Pediatric Exercise and Genomics Research Center (PERC) are engaged in leading-edge research into how and why physical activity is essential to children's health.

Ongoing PERC research projects include:

• The effects of exercise training on the immune system in children with asthma. Lead researchers: Dan M. Cooper, MD, and Shlomit Radom-Aizik, PhD. Learn more about this research program ›
  
  
• School-based exercise training program designed to improve asthma in children in an inner-city neighborhood. Lead researcher: Kim D. Lu, MD.
  
  
• Tele-exercise program for improving fitness in children with cystic fibrosis. Lead researcher: Jen Jen Chen, MD, in collaboration with the Cystic Fibrosis program at Miller Children’s and Women's Hospital Long Beach.
  
  
• The effects of exercise on the immune system genomic and epigenetic responses in children who have survived acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Lead researcher: Shlomit Radom-Aizik, PhD, in collaboration with the Hyundai Institute at CHOC Children’s.
  
  
• The effects of therapeutic dance on the body and mind of children with cerebral palsy. Lead researcher: Kimberley D. Lakes, PhD, in collaboration with Children’s Cerebral Palsy Movement, UC Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts, CHOC Children’s Orthopaedic Institute and Chapman University.
  
  
• Exploring the mystery of human breath during exercise — a new frontier in biomedical research — focusing on development of noninvasive ways to measure the body’s metabolism during exercise. Lead researchers: Hye-Won Shin, PhD, and Dan M. Cooper, MD, in collaboration with UC Irvine's Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratory.
  
  
• Project BEGIN: Body Composition, Exercise and Growth in Newborns, an assisted exercise research program to help premature babies strengthen bones and muscles. Lead researcher: Dan M. Cooper, MD.
  
  
• Reinventing exercise testing in children: Applying new technologies and analytic approaches to transforming how physicians gauge fitness in kids. Lead researcher: Ronen Bar-Yoseph, MD.
  
  
• Inflammation and physical activity during critical periods of development. Lead researcher: Gregory R. Adams, PhD.
  
  
• The impact of caregivers’ attitudes about exercise on child health. Lead researchers: Candice Taylor Lucas, MD, Kimberley D. Lakes, PhD, and Dan M. Cooper, MD.
  
  
• The GREEN Project: Getting Residents Engaged in Exercise and Nutrition. Lead researcher: Frank Zaldivar, PhD, in collaboration with UC Irvine Health PRIME-LC medical students and UC Irvine undergraduate students from the UC Irvine Program in Public Health and School of Biological Sciences.

• Exercise and the Brain: Engaging Attention and Inhibition During Exercise. Lead Researcher: Kimberley Lakes , PhD in collaboration with Shlomit Radom-Aizik, PhD. Funded by NIH Common Fund.

• Creatively Able: A Dance Intervention for Children with Autism. Lead Researcher: Kimberley Lakes, PhD. Co-Investigator: Andrew Palermo, Clare Trevor School of the Arts. Community Partner: United Cerebral Palsy - Orange County (UCP-OC).