{"id":8077,"date":"2024-09-12T14:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T18:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foe.com\/?p=8077"},"modified":"2025-02-12T14:12:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T19:12:33","slug":"drc-directors-report-september-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foe.com\/2024\/09\/12\/drc-directors-report-september-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"DRC Director&#8217;s Report &#8211; September 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>FOEDRC faculty, Dr. Samuel Stephens, Associate Professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the Department of Internal Medicine, has been awarded 2 major grants. The first is a three-year, $1.3M R01 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for his project,\u00a0\u201c<em>Defining the contribution of mitochondrial redox metabolism to support proinsulin folding in the endoplasmic reticulum.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0The second is a\u00a0three-year research grant for a total of up to $750,000 entitled \u201c<em>Role of \u03b2-cell Golgi dysfunction in Type 1 diabetes pathogenesis\u201d<\/em>, from Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the NIDDK project, Dr. Stephens and his team will be investigating the role of pancreatic beta cell (\u03b2-cell) failure in the transition from insulin resistance to Type 2 diabetes. Because defects in the \u03b2-cell\u2019s synthesis of insulin are not completely understood, understanding if and how \u03b2-cell function could be restored would have significant therapeutic value.&nbsp;\u201cOur observations have identified a new mechanism linking defects in mitochondrial and redox metabolism with the decline of insulin production in&nbsp;Type 2 diabetes,\u201d Stephens said. \u201cOur proposed studies will define the molecular linkages between mitochondrial metabolism and insulin production and address how this process is dismantled early in the development of&nbsp;Type 2 diabetes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regarding the Breakthrough T1D project, \u201cOur recent studies have uncovered a novel role for immune-derived inflammatory signals in remodeling the&nbsp;\u03b2-cell\u2019s surface that may&nbsp;provide critical insight into the beta-cell\u2019s role in&nbsp;Type 1 diabetes&nbsp;development,\u201d Stephens said and that \u201cWe propose that inflammatory mediators activate a molecular switch in the&nbsp;\u03b2-cell that generates immunogenic signals on the&nbsp;\u03b2-cell surface. Our work will define the molecular mechanisms of how inflammatory signals activate this molecular switch and define key changes to the&nbsp;\u03b2-cell surface.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Notably, both grants build on preliminary work funded by the FOEDRC Pilot &amp; Feasibility grant that Dr. Stephens obtained in 2022, demonstrating a significant return on investment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Congratulations to Dr. Stephens on this milestone! We look forward to celebrating even more of his achievements in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FOEDRC faculty, Dr. Samuel Stephens, Associate Professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the Department of Internal Medicine, has been awarded 2 major grants. The first is a three-year, $1.3M R01 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for his project,\u00a0\u201cDefining the contribution of mitochondrial redox metabolism to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30420369,"featured_media":6509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1379,1473],"tags":[1470,1474,1471],"class_list":["post-8077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-drc","tag-charities","tag-diabetes-research-center","tag-iowa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/DRCImage-1.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfcqhm-26h","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30420369"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8079,"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077\/revisions\/8079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}