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Despite tremendous investment into the research and development of drugs for Type 2 diabetes (T2D), a cure for the condition has remained wholly elusive, leaving hypoglycemic agents and lifestyle adaptations as the only available treatments. As such, my major focus is to discover novel drug targets for T2D cure. We have recently discovered the early-stage type 2 diabetes (T2D) pathophysiology using metabolomics and lipidomics in a prospective cohort. Later, We designed a bioinformatics tool, named metGWAS 1.0, and identified genetic locus with known risk alleles for this pathophysiology in the studied population. Interestingly, one of these gene loci is also known for hyperlipidemia and cardiovascular diseases (e.g., atherosclerosis). As such, we designed knockout genetic mice to depict the mechanisms of T2D pathophysiology and its relationship with cardiovascular diseases (e.g., atherosclerosis). We are interested in 1) understanding the critical roles of this gene locus in metabolic dysfunction and 2) how we can leverage this knowledge as a therapeutic strategy in metabolic diseases.
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