5 February DRC Director's Report - February 2019 February 5, 2019 By The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center 0 The Department of Defense office of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs has awarded DRC member, Ethan Anderson, Associate Professor College of Pharmacy, funding as part of its Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP) Discovery Award competition. The project is: Exploiting the Paracrine-Like Effect of Prohibitin-1 to Treat Septic Cardiomyopathy. The grant will provide $310,000 in total support over a 2-year period. The project will examine the mitochondrial membrane protein Prohibitin-1 (PHB1) in a model of heart failure that is associated with the often lethal disorder septic shock. Heart failure is associated with impaired cardiac metabolism that limits the energy production that the heart requires for maintaining its contractile function. It is evident that PHB1 may regulate glucose metabolism in the heart, possibly via a unique mechanism in mitochondria. However, the Anderson laboratory has discovered another potential mechanism by which PHB1 could protect the heart. This application, which was submitted in response to the PRMRP topic area of ‘Cardiomyopathy’ stems from Anderson’s exciting unpublished, preliminary findings where they have identified a previously unknown role for a family of lipid raft-associated proteins, called ‘Prohibitins,’ during sepsis. Sepsis is a very serious, often fatal clinical condition resulting from an infection or tissue damage. Prohibitins (PHB1, 2) are normally found in the plasma membrane and densely packed in mitochondrial membranes, where they are at the nexus of cellular metabolism and life/death signaling pathways. The idea behind this proposal stems from the Anderson’s lab’s exciting recent findings that PHB1 may be acting as a ‘brake’ on inflammation during sepsis. In other words, this protein may be working in our bodies to try to restore normal organ function during sepsis by blunting the hyper-inflammatory stress that is induced by our immune system. The Anderson laboratory has observed is that when PHB1 is injected into mice experiencing septic shock, it completely restores normal heart function and metabolism, thereby rescuing the mice from death. Therefore, Dr. Anderson proposes to use this protein as a ‘blueprint,’ to design a new drug for septic cardiomyopathy (and potentially other inflammatory and metabolic disorders) based on their recent discovery of the protein’s normal function during sepsis. Related Articles DRC Director's Report - March 2019 Brian T. O’Neill, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Division of Endocrinology in the Department of Internal Medicine and member of the FOEDRC recently published in the journal Diabetes the discovery that FoxO proteins, which are transcription factors that regulate DNA, are the critical regulators of diabetes-related muscle atrophy. DRC Director's Report - April 2019 In a recent study done by Wei Bao, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and member of the FOEDRC, his research team found that frequent consumption of fried foods, especially fried chicken and fried fish/shellfish, was associated with a higher risk of death from all causes and cardiovascular disease in women in the United States. Women with at least one serving per week of fried chicken had a 13% higher risk of death from all causes, and a 12% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease, when compared with women with no consumption of fried chicken. DRC Director's Report - December 2019 In individuals with obesity and type 2 diabetes a surplus of energy from too much food or increased glucose and lipids can increase tissue metabolism to damaging rates. This is much like a river overflowing its banks, where water no longer channeled in a controlled way can cause catastrophic damage by being in the wrong places. DRC Director's Report - February 2022 On January 3rd, 2022, we celebrated the career of FOEDRC faculty member Dr. Eva Tsalikian on the occasion of her well-earned retirement. For over 4 decades, Dr. Tsalikian has been tireless in her pursuit of better treatments for children with diabetes. Her research work earned her the 2011 Mary Tyler Moore & S. Robert Levine Excellence in Clinical Diabetes Research award and she was the 2013 Honoree at the Eastern Iowa Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation gala. DRC Director's Report - January 2019 The new year is always a time to look back and reflect on the many achievements of the prior year. I have been pleased that the Fraternal Order of Eagles has committed continued support to a program that will be overseen by the FOEDRC that seeks to develop new treatments for diabetes and its complications and to bring them ultimately to market. The Bridge to the cure program represents an innovative collaboration and we are excited by what this new year will bring. For this reason, I have chosen to write about one example from a FOEDRC member that recently demonstrated the ability of the compound nicotinamide riboside to restore nerve damage from chemotherapy. We believe that this same mechanism could lead to improved nerve function in people with diabetes. I hope that you will enjoy reading about this exciting advance below. DRC Director's Report - October 2019 The current epidemic of obesity is a major contributing factor in the rising rate of type 2 diabetes. Recent work from the laboratory of Kamal Rahmouni, PhD, a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center (FOEDRC), uncovered a novel and important role for a protein complex called the BBSome in the function of key nerve cells called neurons in small a part of the brain known as the hypothalamus that controls food intake, body’s fat and glucose metabolism. Showing 0 Comment Comments are closed.