Research Description
Obesity can cause serious health risks and lead to various related diseases like diabetes, infertility, and heart disease. While weight loss is extremely effective for obesity-related diseases, keeping the weight off is challenging and often unsuccessful. Weight loss and regain cycles were found previously to worsen inflammation and obesity-related diseases. Surprisingly, not much is known about why and how regaining the lost weight is harmful. The Weinstock lab recently found that immune precursors in the bone marrow become more inflammatory when mice gain back their lost weight, which worsens disease. My research aims to look at how this weight regain affects these cells in organs most affected by obesity, such as the liver, fat tissue, pancreas, and female reproductive tissues including the uterus and ovaries. To do this, I will be studying these organs in obese mice that lost weight, or have regained weight after losing it, to learn more about how weight fluctuation contributes to obesity-related inflammation. Understanding these processes could lead to new ways of treating diseases related to obesity.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?My research project focuses on how weight fluctuation contributes to obesity-related disease and inflammation. My aims are to look at how weight regain affects immune progenitors in organs most affected by obesity such as the liver, fat tissue, pancreas, and female reproductive tissues. Understanding these processes could lead to new ways of treating diseases related to obesity, such as diabetes, heart disease and infertility.
If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?My research has the potential to reveal targeted therapies that will help to retain the benefits of weight loss, even upon weight regain.
Why important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play?Me and several members of my close family suffer from obesity ever since I remember myself. My mother also has diabetes and I had gestational diabetes. Being personally affected by both obesity and diabetes ignited my passion for a career in diabetes research. With this award, I will be able to perform research to set the ground for my independent research group. My ultimate goal is to reveal new ways to either prevent or cure obesity-related diseases.
In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?I can see the future of diabetes research going towards finding more efficient drugs to treat diabetes and also research on how to prevent diabetes in patients suffer from obesity. These days, with the new commercially available weight loss drugs, there is great hope to reverse obesity and its many related diseases. A major future challenge will be first to maintain the weight loss and second to combat the deleterious effects of weight regain.