Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Obesity affects millions of Canadians, increasing the risk for many chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes. Fat, or adipose tissue, plays an important role in maintaining a healthy metabolism. In obesity, the increase in fat is associated with impairment in the function of fat, leading to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. While some anti-diabetic drugs that improve type 2 diabetes, for example rosiglitazone, work by acting on fat to restore insulin sensitivity, taking these drugs orally can have negative side effects on other parts of the body. In this study, we are using the well-known anti-diabetic drug rosiglitazone to test nanomedicine technology, specifically magnetic nanoparticles, to selectively deliver this drug to fat. This study will allow us to determine if delivering anti-diabetic drugs directly to fat will improve insulin resistance and metabolic function, without inducing negative effects on other tissues in the body. We have previously shown that rosiglitazone can be bound to the nanoparticles, accumulated in fat, and improves insulin resistance in obese mice to a similar degree as mice treated orally with rosiglitazone. This proposal aims to assess how these improvements are occurring and if giving rosiglitazone with the nanoparticles prevents the negative side effects seen in kidney and bone with oral administration. The project will evaluate the potential of nanoparticles for delivering anti-diabetic drugs specifically to fat to improve metabolism. This is a novel therapeutic strategy that could greatly support precision therapeutics for the 11 million Canadians living with type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes.