News & Events

DOCE Director Michael W. Schwartz, MD (MTE) is senior author of a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that presents the first evidence of structural change in the brain in both rodents and humans associated with diet-induced obesity. DOCE researcher Dr. Josh Thaler, MD, PhD, (MTE), is the first author on the paper entitled ʽObesity Is Associated with Hypothalamic Injury in Rodents and Humansʼ which was published in the January 3rd issue.

Dr. Jay Heinecke, MD (MTE) has been awarded an NIH/NHLBI R01 for his project entitled “Quantitative Assessment of HDL Function”. The goal of the research is to identify proteins that alter HDL’s function and are selectively enriched or depleted in subjects at risk for CVD.

Dr. Savitha Subramanian, MD (MTE) is the recipient of a University of Washington Royalty Research Fund Award for her project titled “Role of hepatic macrophages in obesity”. This project will explore the changes in the liver immune microenvironment in the setting of chronic caloric excess using animal models and cell culture. Dr. Subramanian is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition.

David Cummings, MD, is one of three experts invited to comment on bariatric surgery and cardiovascular disease in Nature Medicine. In “At the heart of the benefits of bariatric surgery” Dr.

Dr. Michael Schwartz (MTE) has received the 2012 Solomon A. Berson Distinguished Lectureship Award from the American Physiological Society Endocrinology and Metabolism Section. He was honored for outstanding contributions to his field at the Society’s Experimental Biology Meeting in April 2012. Dr. Schwartz is Professor of Medicine, Director of the UW Medicine Diabetes and Obesity Center of Excellence and the Robert H. Williams Endowed Chair in Medicine.

Drs. Francis Kim, MD, and Savitha Subramanian, MD, were elected to the Western Society for Clinical Investigation (WSCI). The Western Society for Clinical Investigation (WSCI) has been around for more

Dr. Alan Chait, professor and head of the division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition, has been selected as the 2013 Western Society of Clinical Investigation (WSCI) Mayo Soley Award winner. The Mayo Soley award is given to a “senior investigator in recognition of lifetime achievement in the area of scientific endeavor and training of junior investigators.”

Dr. Vincenzo Cirulli and Dr. Laura Crisa (Department of Medicine), together with Dr. Marta Scatena (Department of Bioengineering) have been awarded a Research Award totaling $1,000,000 from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation entitled “Decoding microenvironmental signals promoting beta cell differentiation”. The objective of this multi-Investigator research effort is to reconstruct an in vitro micro-environmental niche that mimics in vivo-like conditions capable of eliciting stem cell maturation toward the pancreatic islet cell lineage.