Current research activities include efforts to identify genes related to obesity and/ or Type 2 Diabetes in mice and humans. The lab has particular interest in the molecular physiology of the energy homeostasis and glucose/insulin metabolism. The lab is expert in the use of naturally occurring and transgenic rodent models to identify candidate molecules, and in vetting these candidates in large numbers of human subjects using high throughput methods The lab houses the molecular genetics/molecular biology core labs of the Columbia NIH-funded Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center and the New York Obesity Research Center.
Dokmanovic-Chouinard, M., Chung, W.K., Chevre, J.C., Watson, E., Yonan, J., Wiegand, B., Bromberg, Y., Wakae, N., Wright, C.V., Overton, J., et al. 2008. Positional cloning of "Lisch-Like", a candidate modifier of susceptibility to type 2 diabetes in mice. PLoS Genet 4:e1000137.
Rosenbaum, M., Sy, M., Pavlovich, K., Leibel, R.L., and Hirsch, J. 2008. Leptin reverses weight loss-induced changes in regional neural activity responses to visual food stimuli. J Clin Invest 118:2583-2591.
Dimos, J.T., Rodolfa, K.T., Niakan, K.K., Weisenthal, L.M., Mitsumoto, H., Chung, W., Croft, G.F., Saphier, G., Leibel, R., Goland, R., et al. 2008. Induced pluripotent stem cells generated from patients with ALS can be differentiated into motor neurons. Science 321:1218-1221.