The Kanter Laboratory

Welcome to the Kanter Laboratory

What are the molecular mechanisms that result in complications of diabetes?

Research:

Diabetes is increasing as a result of increased rates of obesity, and with that, complications of diabetes are also on the rise. These include diabetic kidney disease and macrovascular complications such as cardiovascular disease due to underlying atherosclerosis. In the laboratory, we focus on these two main complications of diabetes and how they potentially interact. We are especially interested in myeloid cells (monocytes and macrophages), and how they get activated under diabetic conditions, and their role in the acceleration of diabetes-associated complications, such as kidney disease and atherosclerosis. The laboratory has recently generated a model to study the combination of diabetic kidney disease and atherosclerosis. This will allow us to ask what molecular mechanisms drive the individual complications and the interaction between them. One of these mechanisms appears to be augmented inflammatory signals, perhaps caused by diabetic dyslipidemia. The current focus of the laboratory is to understand how dyslipidemia accelerates diabetic complications.