Grant: Project Grant - PA: Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes

Diabetes and high blood pressure are major risk factors in the development of heart disease, including stroke, heart attacks and kidney failure. Keeping blood sugar at normal levels with insulin and inhibitors of a glucose transporter called sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) (the main protein in the kidney that reabsorbs 90% glucose filtered through the kidney and back to the body) is the best way to prevent or improve complications in diabetic people. However, how SGLT2 inhibitors work and how SGLT2 expression is controlled are not well understood. Dr. John Chan's group discovered a protein called "nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2" (NRF2) and is examining its impact on raising blood sugar levels, blood pressure and kidney damage in diabetics by using state-of-art technology to remove this protein (NRF2) in diabetic mouse kidneys and in cultured human kidney cells and to study its effect on SGLT2 expression in vivo and in vitro, respectively. His research will help the industry understand how NRF2 affects blood glucose, blood pressure and kidney failure in diabetes and will improve clinical treatment for diabetics.