Novel Therapies for a Healthier Canada
Canadians eat too many fast foods and don’t exercise enough. With obesity contributing to escalating rates of diabetes and heart disease, it’s a recipe for disaster.
At the molecular level, Dr. Gregory Steinberg, Canada Research Chair in Metabolism, Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes, is working to understand how obesity causes Type 2 diabetes and the role nutrition and exercise play in maintaining good health.
To accomplish this, he is conducting metabolic studies in which genetically modified mice exercise or consume calorie foods. How many and what type of calories (fat or carbohydrate) the mice burn will be measured both during exercise and in response to hormones.
Steinberg’s studies will be complemented with work using advanced techniques in protein chemistry and molecular biology with an emphasis on phosphoproteomics (identifying, cataloguing and characterizing proteins) and gene expression analysis.
Steinberg is also interested in understanding the role of inflammation in obesity and how this contributes to the development of insulin resistance and atherosclerosis.
The goal of Steinberg’s research is to develop medicines that could be used to treat insulin resistance and atherosclerosis, both serious problems for the more than one million diabetics living in Canada.