Diabetes

The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health has renewed a five-year grant through the NIH’s flagship T32 institutional training grant program. T32 grants provide funding to support students and postdoctoral trainees working in focused areas of research that advance the NIH mission. Read More

Today, the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center includes 140 faculty members from 15 departments and three colleges or schools at Vanderbilt and Meharry Medical College who conduct basic, clinical and translational research on the cause, prevention, treatment and complications of diabetes and obesity. Read More

Prior to insulin’s introduction to the clinic in 1922, life expectancy after a type 1 diabetes diagnosis was only one to two years. Even after insulin, without the understanding and technology we have today, managing diabetes was a struggle. Read More

By Leah Mann Wenbiao Chen, Ph.D. The lab of Wenbiao Chen, associate professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, identified a signaling pathway for hyperaminoacidemia-induced alpha cell proliferation. Hyperaminoacidemia, or an excess of amino acids in the bloodstream, occurs when the function of glucagon, a pancreatic hormone that raises glucose levels… Read More

Obesity is a well-known risk factor for diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. However, it is often considered to be a risk factor brought on by choice, or by inaction. This stigma, in combination with body image norms, oversimplifies obesity as it also complicates how individuals and society… Read More

Maureen Gannon, PhD, professor of Medicine, Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, and Cell and Developmental Biology, is the recipient of the 2022 Lois Jovanovic Transformative Woman in Diabetes Award presented by the American Diabetes Association (ADA). The award is given in honor of Lois Jovanovic, MD, whose pioneering work laid the… Read More

By Wendy Bindeman Ambra Pozzi Ambra Pozzi, professor of medicine and of molecular physiology and biophysics, first author Kakali Ghoshal (a postdoc in the Pozzi lab), and colleagues recently published a study showing that supplementation with an analog of a lipid metabolite called epoxyeicosatrienoic acid, which is involved in insulin… Read More

Researchers from the labs of Hassane Mchaourab and Richard O’Brien, both professors of molecular physiology and biophysics, have successfully isolated active glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) and characterized its biophysical and biochemical properties. G6Pase dysfunction is a primary contributor to metabolic diseases, including diabetes, and labs have been trying for years to isolate… Read More