Obesity and its associated co-morbidities are major health problems in our society, contributing to diabetesmellitus, cardiovascular disease and stroke, hypertension, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Theobjective of this postdoctoral training program is to provide a productive learning experience in biomedicalresearch related to obesity. 0This application describes a comprehensive training program that takesadvantage of a cadre of distinguished faculty mentors, a strong research environment endowed withtechnology core facilities, an extensive array of genetically defined mouse models and established humanclinical populations, and a curriculum that allows educational opportunities to augment scientific knowledge,career development, and training in the responsible conduct of research. This program is unique in that atrainee will receive mentoring from two faculty members, each of a distinct scientific team , to promote thedevelopment and execution of an interdisciplinary research project to examine the behavioral, metabolic,and molecular events that cause obesity and the metabolic syndrome. This team-approach is supported bythe collaborative environment of our 26 faculty members, drawn from 14 different Departments and Centersthat have been organized into four teams to focus on The Central Regulation of Energy Metabolism (Team1: Neuroanatomy, Neurobiology, Psychiatry), The Molecular Biology of Energy Metabolism (Team 2:Biochemistry, Molecular Genetics, Molecular Biology, and Physiology), In vivo Intermediary Metabolism(Team 3: Advanced Imaging, Human Nutrition, Hepatology/Gastroenterology), and Human Genetics andEnergy Metabolism (Team 4: Bariatric Surgery, Clinical Epidemiology, and Genetics). Individuals acceptedinto this program will have a Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D., or M.D. degree and will have acquired some experience inone of many disciplines integral to this work prior to beginning their three-year fellowship. However, theirtraining with two mentors, and work in two or more collaborative laboratory settings will allow them tobecome fluent in multiple, often disparate scientific languages (e.g. molecular biology, radiology,neuroanatomay,, nutrition, psychiatry, human genetics) thus permitting them to critically address uniquescientific problems in an interdisciplinary manner. This program is designed, therefore, to train individualswho will become effective teachers and investigators capable of cutting-edge research in obesity.
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| Sunny, Nishanth E; Parks, Elizabeth J; Browning, Jeffrey D et al. (2011) Excessive hepatic mitochondrial TCA cycle and gluconeogenesis in humans with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Cell Metab 14:804-10 |
| Sunny, Nishanth E; Satapati, Santhosh; Fu, Xiaorong et al. (2010) Progressive adaptation of hepatic ketogenesis in mice fed a high-fat diet. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 298:E1226-35 |
| Holland, William L; Scherer, Philipp E (2009) PAQRs: a counteracting force to ceramides? Mol Pharmacol 75:740-3 |
