Dr. Joshua Thaler (MTE) has been awarded a Beginning Grant-in-Aid Award from the American Heart Association entitled “The Role of CNS Inflammation in Insulin Resistance and Diabetes”. This two-year project focuses on the potential contribution of high-fat diet-induced inflammation in the hypothalamus on susceptibility to insulin resistance. Dr. Thaler’s preliminary work suggests that providing an anti-inflammatory therapy directly into the brain can rapidly reverse the insulin resistance associated with obesity.  This proposal seeks to delineate the cellular mechanisms by which this phenomenon occurs and to test an oral therapy that takes targets this system as a potential diabetes therapeutic.  Dr. Thaler is an Acting Instructor in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition.