Meet the Minds of CDIB spotlights the diverse faculty who power the department’s groundbreaking research. Through candid interviews, it gives readers a closer look at the career paths, passions, and real-world impacts of UAB researchers shaping the future of medicine.
Anna Thalacker‑Mercer, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Cell, Developmental, and Integrative Biology, whose research focuses on identifying and understanding nutrients and their metabolism in skeletal muscle aging and chronic disease.
Thalacker‑Mercer’s academic path began at Purdue University, where she earned her doctorate in the Interdepartmental Nutrition Program. There, she developed a strong foundation in protein nutrition and metabolism, the biology of aging, and skeletal muscle physiology. Her interest in muscle biology deepened during her graduate work, when she began examining how dietary protein shapes the aging skeletal muscle transcriptome. Her postdoctoral training at UAB broadened her focus to skeletal muscle cell biology, inflammaging, and exercise medicine.
“I was exploring the impact of dietary protein intake on the age-related skeletal muscle transcript profile. Part of the signature led me to the skeletal muscle stem cell,” said Thalacker-Mercer. “Through my postdoctoral training and even further into my independent career, I became intrigued by nutrient and metabolic determinants of skeletal muscle cell function.”
In 2012, Thalacker‑Mercer accepted a faculty position at Cornell University, where she established her independent research program centered on the essentiality of amino acids, particularly nutritionally non‑essential amino acids, in skeletal muscle cell function.
Throughout her research career, she has studied age-, inflammatory-, metabolic-, and nutrition-related alterations in human skeletal muscle using cellular, molecular, and omics approaches in whole muscle tissue and primary cell culture.
A recent collaboration with Martha Field, Ph.D., at Cornell University has brought new attention to the role of vitamin B12 in skeletal muscle aging. While B12 has been linked to muscle mass, strength, and quality, the relationship behind these associations were unclear.
With pilot funding from the UAB Nathan Shock Center, Thalacker-Mercer and a team of researchers set out to determine whether B12 activity influences mitochondrial DNA uracil incorporation and whether supplementation can improve muscle mass and mitochondrial biology.
“We demonstrated that B12 availability does influence mtDNA uracil incorporation and, importantly for skeletal muscle aging, B12 supplementation improves mitochondrial biology and skeletal muscle mass in aged mice,” said Thalacker‑Mercer.
As her lab continues to define these pathways, she remains focused on moving the science forward and supporting the trainees who help drive it. “You need resilience and patience,” she said, a reminder that steady work and curiosity push discovery ahead.
Thalacker‑Mercer’s contributions to the field have been recognized nationally. In 2026, she was named a Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition (FASN)—a designation marking excellence in nutrition science and honoring her commitment to advancing the field. That same year, she received the Henrik Dam Award for Scientific Discovery from the American Society for Nutrition Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Named for Nobel laureate Henrik Carl Peter Dam, the award honors mid‑career scientists whose research has significantly advanced understanding of micronutrients, nutritional status, and metabolism.
Follow along with the Meet the Minds of CDIB series to discover more about the faculty advancing science at UAB.