Grant: Operating Grant

The brain and pancreas cooperate to regulate blood glucose levels both during the fasted state and following a meal. During the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes, glucose responsive cells in the brain and pancreas become dysfunctional which often worsens disease. We have a discovered a protein (Npas4) that is made in the pancreas and brain in response to glucose in normal people but not those with diabetes. We know that loss of this protein in mice causes them to eat more and causes their glucose levels to rise. However, we do not know exactly where in the brain it is acting; how in the pancreas it is acting; whether increased levels of this protein might be therapeutically beneficial or which other proteins Npas4 normally controls in either tissue. This proposal aims to answer these four questions as this could help us design new therapies that could be used to combat both obesity and diabetes.