News & Research

    Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts

AMPK regulation and biological relevance

General Research Subject: Insulin Resistance Pre Diabetes

Focus: Adipocytes

Type of Grant: Mentor Based Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship

Project Start Date: July 1, 2011

Project End Date: June 30, 2015

Research Description

Over the past 15 years, Dr. Ruderman and his colleagues have carried out basic investigations of how fat metabolism is regulated in skeletal muscle, adipose tissue, liver and vascular cells. Their research has been instrumental in implicating abnormalities in fatty acid metabolism in such disorders as insulin resistance, obesity and the early damage to endothelial cells (cells that line the internal surface of arteries) that is thought to initiate premature coronary heart disease in diabetic patients. They have also shown that these abnormalities in fatty acid metabolism very likely involve two molecules: the fuel-sensing enzyme AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and silent information regulator 1 (SIRT1), an enzyme implicated in the protection against aging induced by caloric restriction. Ongoing work is defining how AMPK and SIRT1 regulate each other and how abnormalities in such regulation lead to disease. Efforts are also being made to identify how exercise acutely alters AMPK and SIRT1 in multiple tissues with the intent of understanding how it helps to prevent type 2 diabetes and its vascular complications. Fellows working on these projects utilize a variety of experimental models including cultured endothelial cells, incubated muscles, intact rodents including transgenic mice, and most recently, humans.

Research Profile

What area of diabetes research does your project cover? What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and/or curing diabetes?

If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?

Why is it important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play in your research efforts?

In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?