Grant: Operating Grant-PA: INMD Start Up Funds (bridge funding) - Assistant Professors

Over 63% of all adult Canadians are obese or overweigh, which costs Canada between $4.6 and $7.1 billion annually. Obesity is a major risk factor for Type II diabetes, heart disease, stroke and some cancers. Lifestyle, such as diet and exercise, along with genetic predisposition, are major contributing factors to obesity. However, weight loss in obese individuals can be very difficult to achieve and/or maintain by lifestyle changes alone. The proposed project will address this gap in health research and may help to reduce the 2.6 million obesity related deaths worldwide. In contrast, excess loss of fat in conditions such as lipodystrophia and cancer-associated cachexia, are also associated with increased diabetes, heart disease and, in the case of cancer, poor survival. Treatments for these conditions include nutritional intervention and treatment of associated diabetes or heart disease. Therefore, targeted therapies are essential in order to address both the excess and lack of fat tissue. Discovery of targeted therapies requires increased understanding of the mechanisms that regulate the production of fat tissue. Fat cells, called adipocytes, have the ability to increase in size and number throughout life in response to excess food intake. There is also a continuous replacement of old, dying cells by newborn, or precursor, fat cells. We are investigating how the development of precursor adipocytes to mature adipocytes is controlled. CD24 is a cell surface molecule that regulates the ability of precursor fat cells to form fully functional fat tissue. In this project, I will determine the precise molecular role of CD24 in this process, determine how CD24 expression is regulated, and identify the genes and proteins that carry out CD24's function using cell culture and whole animal approaches. This research will enhance our knowledge of how fat cell development is controlled and may help in the future design of drugs for maintenance of a healthy amount of fat.