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Cellular processes underlie all higher order events, including organismal metabolism and immune responses. My lab is currently focusing on four main research projects.
1. Type I diabetes is a metabolic disorder caused by immune dysregulation leading to an autoimmune response against insulin-producing Islet of Langerhans β cells. Susceptibility to type I diabetes has been linked to expression of a specific type of MHC class II, a protein that displays antigen to stimulate an immune response. My lab is currently examining how the MHC class II allele expressed in the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse model contributes to autoimmunity.
2. Diabetic retinopathy is the most common secondary complication arising from diabetes mellitus. To date, most studies of diabetic retinopathy have used rats in which diabetes was chemically induced as the model system. In collaboration with Dr. Vikki Connaughton, my lab is developing the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse, which spontaneously develop type I diabetes, as a model system to study diabetic retinopathy.
3. Both generation of new cells and metabolic replacement of cell components contribute to deposition of dietary nutrients leading to tissue turnover in organisms. The rate of tissue turnover varies between organisms, depending on their growth and metabolic rates. Determination of tissue turnover rates is useful to ecologists studying questions relating to animal migration, diet preferences and food web structure. My lab, in collaboration with Dr. Stephen MacAvoy, is examining relative contributions of cell metabolism and cell division (tissue growth) to tissue turnover rates under different metabolic and dietary conditions using stable isotope analysis.
4. Stable isotope analysis is an extensively used tool to study physiological and ecological processes. Enzymes facilitate fractionation of naturally occurring stable isotopes, resulting in different isotopic ratios of reactant and product. My lab is examining the carbon and nitrogen fractionation factors of common enzymes that participate in important cellular processes.
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| Last Updated: 12-Aug-2004 | |