Metabolic Regulation and Human Diseases

Speakers

Organizers

Hening Lin

Cornell University

Jennifer Henry

New York Academy of Sciences

Speakers

Debbi Muoio

Duke University

Dr. Muoio earned a Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry at the University of North Carolina working in the lipid enzymology laboratory of Dr. Rosalind Coleman. Her post-doctoral training centered on metabolic disease and exercise physiology in the laboratories of Dr. Lynis Dohm at East Carolina University and Drs. William Kraus and Chris Newgard at Duke University. She was subsequently recruited to join the faculty of the Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center at Duke University, where she now holds an appointment as Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology and Cancer Biology.

Dr. Muoio’s laboratory investigates mechanisms of metabolic regulation in skeletal muscle, with emphasis on molecular events that link overnutrition and physical inactivity to the development of insulin resistance. Her program features a multidisciplinary approach that combines integrative physiology and intermediary metabolism with cellular and molecular biochemistry, using model systems that range from primary human myocytes to genetically engineered mice. Recent studies by her research team have employed mass spectrometry-based metabolomics as a tool to understand the interplay between mitochondrial energetics and insulin action. Emergent findings from this work suggest that obesity-associated glucose intolerance stems from excessive β-oxidation and lipid-induced mitochondrial stress. Ongoing studies seek to identify signaling mechanisms that mediate crosstalk between muscle mitochondria and glucose regulatory pathways, with the goal of realizing new therapeutic opportunities for treating metabolic diseases. Three main project areas of her laboratory include: 1) mechanisms that link lipid oversupply to mitochondrial malfunction and insulin resistance in skeletal muscle, 2) mechanisms through which exercise enhances mitochondrial function, lipid tolerance and insulin sensitivity, and 3) translational studies to examine the impact of diet and/or exercise interventions on metabolic regulation and mitochondrial function in human skeletal muscle.

Bill Roush

Scripps Institute, Florida

Dr. William R. Roush, a native of Chula Vista, CA, received the Bachelors Degree in Chemistry, Summa Cum Laude, from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1974, and a PhD in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1977 under the direction of Professor R. B. Woodward. After an additional year as a postdoctoral associate in Woodward's laboratory, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as Assistant Professor. He moved to Indiana University in 1987, and was promoted to the rank of Professor in 1989 and Distinguished Professor in 1995. In 1997 he moved to the University of Michigan as the Warner Lambert/Parke Davis Professor of Chemistry. He moved to the new Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, as Professor of Chemistry, Executive Director of Medicinal Chemistry, and Associate Dean of Scripps’ Kellogg Graduate School in 2005.

Dr. Roush's research interests focus on the stereocontrolled synthesis of stereochemically complex natural products, and on the design and development of new reactions and synthetic methods. He is known for his stereochemical studies and synthetic applications of the intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction and his work in the area of asymmetric and acyclic diastereoselective synthesis, specifically the use of tartrate ester modified allylboronates and other allylmetal compounds for the aldol-like construction of propionate-derived systems. He has also made important contributions the synthesis of deoxyglycosides and polyhydroxylated natural products (his total synthesis of olivomycin A is particularly noteworthy), and to the design and synthesis of inhibitors of cysteine proteases targeting important human pathogens (e.g., Trypanosoma, Plasmodium and Entamoeba species). Since moving to Scripps Florida, his program in chemical biology and medicinal chemistry has expanded to include research on the development of inhibitors of kinases, inhibitors of certain epigenetic targets, inhibitors and activators of nuclear receptors, and small molecule inhibitors of carboxylic acid transporters as potential therapeutic agents.

Reuben Shaw

Salk Institute

Obtained bachelor’s degree in Biology from Cornell University in 1993. Did Ph.D studies in the Center for Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) working in the laboratory of Dr. Tyler Jacks on the neurofibromatosis type 2 tumor suppressor. In 1999, began his postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Lewis Cantley where he began working on the LKB1 tumor suppressor and identified AMPK as a key substrate of LKB1, and subsequently connected AMPK to the mTOR signaling pathway. Subsequent studies showed that LKB1 is the key kinase for AMPK in metabolic tissues as well and that LKB1 function is required in liver for the therapeutic effect of the widely used diabetes therapeutic metformin. In January of 2006, started as an assistant professor at the Salk Institute. Dr. Shaw has won a number of young investigator awards including being an American Cancer Society Scholar, a recipient of the Jimmy V Cancer Foundation award, and an American Diabetes Association Junior Faculty Award. In October 2009, he was named a Howard Hughes Early Career Scientist.