15 February DRC Director's Report - February 2022 February 15, 2022 By The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center Iowa, DRC, Diabetes, Diabetes Research Center 0 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. She has published over 120 research articles, nearly all of which are focused on diabetes. Her early work focused on amino acid metabolism in diabetes. However, in the early 1990s she refocused her research efforts on improving clinical care for persons with diabetes. Here are some highlights of her many impactful contributions to diabetes research. (1) In the early 2000s, she published a series of articles that contributed to the advancement of continuous glucose monitors for use in diabetes treatment. (2) In another series of publications, she helped determine that out-of-control diabetes is associated with structural brain changes in children. Importantly, this finding helped spur major changes to the blood sugar goals of diabetes therapy in children. (3) In 2019, she was part of a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that a medication called teplizumab can significantly delay the onset of type 1 diabetes. This work was a major step forward in the development of strategies to prevent type 1 diabetes. Impressively, during her productive research career, Dr. Tsalikian wore several other hats. She was a physician who provided clinical care to children and young adults with diabetes. She also built a thriving Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes clinical division at the University Hospital, starting essentially with only herself. It was for all of these reasons that we honored Dr. Tsalikian on January 3rd. However, we had another reason to celebrate. In retirement, as an emeritus faculty member, Dr. Tsalkilian will continue to be involved in diabetes research, helping advise the clinical group she founded as they move forward working to develop better treatments for diabetes. Related Articles DRC Director's Report - May 2022 Obesity causes a buildup of fat metabolites, including a toxic lipid molecule ceramide. Buildup of ceramide worsens health because it contributes to the development of diabetes and other diseases. Previous work has shown that targeting ceramide is an effective strategy to treat obesity, diabetes and associated cardiovascular disease. This can be achieved using a molecule called myriocin which is a very potent inhibitor of ceramide generation. Myriocin-mediated reduction of ceramide levels was found to be an effective way to treat obesity and associated diseases in rodents. Myriocin, which is not approved for use in humans, is abundant in a number of fungal species including the one called Cordyceps which is routinely consumed as part of traditional Chinese medicine used for the treatment of numerous diseases including diabetes. DRC Director's Report - April 2022 A research team that includes several FOEDRC faculty recently published an article describing a new approach to help treat type 2 diabetes. The research team included FOEDRC faculty members Robert Kerns PhD, Andrew Norris MD PhD, Eric Taylor PhD, Yumi Imai MD, and Jessica Smith MD. Also recognized in the publication was Wojciech Grzesik, PhD, who is a research scientist in the FOEDRC metabolic phenotyping core. The work was published in the prestigious journal "Nature Communications" and can be found at this link : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35145074/ DRC Director's Report - February 2019 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. DRC Director's Report - February 2021 The exact mechanisms underlying the metabolic effects of gastric bypass or bariatric surgery remain unclear. At the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Mohamad Mokadem, MD, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and member of FOEDRC, and his research team have developed an animal model of bariatric surgery, which they are using to understand the underlying mechanisms by which this treatment not only prevents obesity but also reverses diabetes. DRC Director's Report - January 2022 It is with mixed emotions, but with a sense of great pride in our accomplishments that I write this my final Director’s report. When I came to the University of Iowa nearly 9-years ago, I was given a challenge to leverage the generous gift of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, to develop a world class diabetes research center. I reflected back on where things were at the University of Iowa in 2008, when the FOE began your campaign for the Diabetes Research Center and where they are now. In 2008, there were 5 faculty members identified as doing diabetes research with a total team of 20. We had 10 grants received and approximately $1M in funding from the National Institute of Health. DRC Director's Report - March 2022 Recently the International Journal of Science featured important research by a member of the FOEDRC, Ayotunde Dokun, MD, PhD, Director of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and his team. Peripheral arterial disease is the narrowing or blockage of the vessels that supply blood to lower extremities. This disease affects millions of individuals with diabetes and is considered a major complication of diabetes which often lead to limb amputation. Showing 0 Comment Comments are closed.