Brian Timmons
Professor, Pediatrics

Dr. Brian Timmons is the Canada Research Chair in Child Health & Exercise Medicine and a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, as well as the Director of the Child Health & Exercise Medicine Program at McMaster University and McMaster Children's Hospital. He holds status as an Associate Member in the Department of Kinesiology, a Member of the Centre for Metabolism, Obesity, and Diabetes Research (MODR), and Associate Member of the Offord Centre for Child Studies. Dr. Timmons was recruited into the Department of Pediatrics to continue the research program previously led by the late Dr. Oded Bar-Or. Today, this program is known as the Child Health & Exercise Medicine (CHEM) Program.

Our unique facility has the capacity to address a variety of research questions relevant to child health ranging from optimizing clinical exercise testing in children with a disease or disability to unravelling the molecular mechanisms that translate physical activity into optimal growth and development. Our approach is to combine basic science techniques with clinical research trials to facilitate the translation of physiological principles into clinical applications. Ongoing projects are investigating the impact of exercise on brain health of children with a concussion, cytokine response to acute exercise in children with a chronic medical condition, children's exercise responses in different environmental conditions, and movement behaviours in children with a chronic medical condition or disability.

The diversity of research at CHEM creates a unique training environment. Students and trainees are exposed to a unique combination of clinical research methods and basic science techniques. Exercise laboratory protocols include cycle ergometry, indirect calorimetry, and spirometry. We use accelerometry to measure free living physical activity in healthy children and in children with a chronic medical condition or disability. ELISA, cell isolation and flow cytometry, metabolite analysis and stable isotope methods are also used in our studies.