Dr. Michael Schwartz (MTE) has received the 2012 Solomon A. Berson Distinguished Lectureship Award from the American Physiological Society Endocrinology and Metabolism Section. He was honored for outstanding contributions to his field at the Society’s Experimental Biology Meeting in April 2012. Dr. Schwartz is Professor of Medicine, Director of the UW Medicine Diabetes and Obesity Center of Excellence and the Robert H. Williams Endowed Chair in Medicine.
Recent News
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DAVID E. CUMMINGS (MTE) is one of three experts invited to comment on bariatric surgery and cardiovascular disease in Nature Medicine. In “At the heart of the benefits of bariatric surgery” Dr. Cummings discusses the influence of the surgery on weight loss, metabolic disorders, and CV disease and calls for clinical guidelines. He is professor of medicine at the VA and a member of the Diabetes and Obesity Center of Excellence. An authority on diabetes, body-weight control, and bariatric surgery, he is vice president of the International Diabetes Surgery Task Force.
Click here to view full article.
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Dr. Savitha Subramanian, MD (MTE) is the recipient of a University of Washington Royalty Research Fund Award for her project titled "Role of hepatic macrophages in obesity". This project will explore the changes in the liver immune microenvironment in the setting of chronic caloric excess using animal models and cell culture. Dr. Subramanian is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition.
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Dr. Jay Heinecke, MD (MTE) has been awarded an NIH/NHLBI R01 for his project entitled "Quantitative Assessment of HDL Function". The goal of the research is to identify proteins that alter HDL’s function and are selectively enriched or depleted in subjects at risk for CVD. The long-term goal is to understand the factors that impair HDL’s ability to remove cholesterol and inhibit macrophage inflammation, which may have important implications for HDL therapeutics. Dr. Heinecke is a professor of medicine and a member of the Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate Program. He holds the Karasinski Chair in Metabolic Research and is director of the DOM Mass Spectrometry Resource.
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DOCE Director Michael W. Schwartz, MD (MTE) is senior author of a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that presents the first evidence of structural change in the brain in both rodents and humans associated with diet-induced obesity. DOCE researcher Dr. Josh Thaler, MD, PhD, (MTE), is the first author on the paper entitled ʽObesity Is Associated with Hypothalamic Injury in Rodents and Humansʼ which was published in the January 3rd issue. Other DOCE investigators co-authoring the paper are Stephan J. Guyenet, PhD (MTE), Gregory J. Morton, PhD (MTE), and Brent E. Wisse, MD (MTE).
Along with colleagues from the UW Departments of Medicine and Radiology as well as Yale University and the University of Cincinnati, the group studied the effect of high-fat diet consumption on the brain health of mice and rats. They found evidence of very early and lasting injury to a specific part of the hypothalamus, a brain area critically involved in the regulation of body weight. Similarly, analysis of brain MRIs from a group of healthy people with a wide range of body weights revealed signs of damage to the hypothalamus in the obese subjects. Together, these findings provide a potential explanation for the difficulty in achieving and maintaining weight loss once obesity has become established.
The paper has attracted wide media attention nationally and internationally. Dr. Schwartz was heard on January 3rd on KUOW, and Dr. Thaler on KING5 television December 30, among many other reports.
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Dr. Gregory Morton has received a Novo Nordisk Diabetes Innovation Award for his proposal “Leptin, Glucagon and Diabetes.” His is one of the first such awards in the pharmaceutical firm’s new program, dedicated to supporting exploration of novel hypotheses in nonclinical diabetes and obesity research that can further the development of therapies. Dr. Morton will receive $500,000 over 2 years, beginning December 1. He describes his study: “Recent evidence suggests that induction of hyperleptinemia fully ameliorates hyperglycemia in a rodent model of type 1 diabetes, and our recent findings implicate the brain in this effect. We have shown that this leptin effect involves a novel, insulin-independent mechanism characterized by reduced rates of hepatic glucose production and increased rates of tissue glucose uptake and establishes that the brain has the capacity to normalize blood glucose levels in uDM. These observations are distinct from any previously described CNS leptin action and support the overarching goal of this proposal to delineate the neuronal circuits and peripheral mechanisms activated by leptin that mediate its anti-diabetic effects. We propose to identify the mechanism(s) whereby leptin deficiency stimulates glucagon secretion in uDM and to establish the extent to which suppression of hyperglucagonemia contributes to leptin-mediated reversal of hyperglycemia in this setting. These studies have the potential to identify and develop an approach to diabetes treatment that is both novel and effective.” Dr. Morton is a Research Associate Professor in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition.
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Dr. Vincenzo Cirulli and Dr. Laura Crisa (Department of Medicine), together with Dr. Marta Scatena (Department of Bioengineering) have been awarded a Research Award totaling $1,000,000 from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation entitled "Decoding microenvironmental signals promoting beta cell differentiation". The objective of this multi-Investigator research effort is to reconstruct an in vitro micro-environmental niche that mimics in vivo-like conditions capable of eliciting stem cell maturation toward the pancreatic islet cell lineage. The project will focus on reconstructing tissue-like 3D culture model systems in which the extracellular environment can be modulated to study the effects of matrix stiffness and composition, and heterotypic cell interactions on stem cell ability to differentiate into pancreatic progenitors and ultimately islet cells. Drs. Cirulli and Crisa are Associate Professors within the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition.
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Dr. Michael Schwartz (MTE) has received a 5-year, $4 million award from the Life Sciences Discovery Fund (LSDF) under its 2010 Program Grant Competition. The grant will support the Diabetes-Stem Cell Program (DSCP), a multi-institutional collaborative effort whose overarching goal is to unite expertise in stem cell biology with that in developmental biology of pancreatic beta cells, basic and clinical aspects of diabetes, implantation biology, and immunology in a joint scientific endeavor. Key objectives of the DSCP include not only the creation and commercialization of a new, cell-based method for diabetes treatment, but also the development of strategies to eliminate the risk of tumor formation in cell implants, and to optimize methods for cell differentiation and metabolic analysis.
Dr. Schwartz is professor and founding director of the Diabetes and Obesity Center of Excellence and holds the Robert H. Williams Endowed Chair in Medicine. Other program investigators include Vincenzo Cirulli, Laura Crisa, Marshall Horwitz, Gerald Nepom, Ian Sweet and Carol Ware.
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Dr. Michael Schwartz (MTE) has been awarded an American Diabetes Association Mentor-Based Postdoctoral Fellowship Award for his application entitled "Hypothalamic Mechanisms in the Pathogenesis of Obesity and Diabetes" This ADA Program supports the training of scientists in an environment most conducive to beginning a career in diabetes research. The 4-year award is given to established and active investigators in diabetes research for the annual stipend support of a postdoctoral fellow to work closely with the mentor. Dr. Schwartz is Professor of Medicine, Director of the UW Medicine Diabetes and Obesity Center of Excellence and the Robert H. Williams Endowed Chair in Medicine.