Los Angeles, July 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Lundquist Institute is helping establish Exercise Medicine as a new medical discipline through pioneering physician education, national scientific leadership, and research that is transforming how exercise is prescribed to prevent and treat disease.
Although decades of research have demonstrated that exercise is one of the most effective interventions for preventing and managing chronic disease, physicians receive relatively little formal education on prescribing exercise as part of patient care. The Lundquist Institute is helping change that by integrating physician education, translational research, diagnostics, and clinical implementation to establish Exercise Medicine as a recognized medical discipline. The Institute also plays a leading role in shaping the field nationally through the newly formed Academy of Exercise Medicine, where Kathy Sietsema, MD, serves as President-Elect.
“Exercise has long been recommended as part of a healthy lifestyle,” said Dr. Sietsema, a physician-scientist at The Lundquist Institute. “Our goal is to move beyond general recommendations by training physicians to assess patients’ exercise function and prescribe exercise with the same scientific rigor and precision as any other evidence-based therapy.”
Beginning this summer, Julia Lu, MD, MS, became the inaugural fellow in The Lundquist Institute’s new one-year Exercise Medicine Fellowship Program. Among the first adult fellowships of its kind in the United States, the program provides advanced training in exercise physiology, cardiopulmonary exercise testing, exercise prescription, and the application of exercise as both a preventive intervention and a treatment for chronic disease.
The fellowship builds upon more than five decades of leadership in exercise physiology at The Lundquist Institute. In the 1970s, investigators Karl Wasserman, MD, PhD, and Brian J. Whipp, PhD, developed the modern cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET), now considered the gold standard for evaluating exercise intolerance in health and disease.
The Institute also recently helped advance the scientific foundation of Exercise Medicine through a special issue of Experimental Physiology dedicated to the field. Co-edited by Harry Rossiter, PhD, Executive Director of The Lundquist Institute’s Systems Medicine & Precision Prevention Innovation Hub, the issue brings together leading researchers from around the world and includes editorials that help establish the conceptual framework and scientific language of Exercise Medicine, along with original research and reviews from The Lundquist Institute investigators.
“Exercise Medicine is no longer a concept of the future,” said Dr. Rossiter. “It is becoming an evidence-based discipline that will change how we prevent and treat disease.”
By advancing the science, training the next generation of physicians, and translating discovery into clinical practice, The Lundquist Institute is helping establish Exercise Medicine as a new standard of care that will reshape how chronic disease is prevented and treated, improving lives for generations to come.
About The Lundquist Institute
The Lundquist Institute is an independent nonprofit biomedical research organization where scientists, clinicians, and partners work together to transform patient-informed discoveries into new treatments, diagnostics, technologies, and solutions that improve health locally and around the world. Sharing a campus and working in close partnership with Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, The Lundquist Institute bridges scientific discovery, clinical care, innovation, and community impact to improve lives through pioneering research and innovation.
Contact Info
The Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation
saoimanu.sope@lundquist.org
