#IDIBELLseminars: Targeting adipose tissue metabolism to combat obesity and diabetes

Obesity is a global epidemic and a major risk factor for severe chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. The current treatments against obesity (lifestyle modifications, bariatric surgery and the few promising anti-obesity drugs) show limited long-term efficacy. The adipose tissue has an important role in energy storage, metabolism, reproduction, and a relevant endocrine and inflammatory function. It suffers significant physical and metabolic alterations in obesity. We aim to study the metabolic mechanisms involved in the adipose tissue during obesity progression to identify new therapeutic targets and fight against obesity. Thus, this talk will address new anti-obesity approaches including gene therapy and intermittent fasting.

Hosted by Cristina Muñoz Pinedo – Preclinical and Experimental Research in Thoracic Tumors group

Laura Herrero holds a degree in Chemistry (1999) and a PhD in Biochemistry (2004) from the University of Barcelona. Since 2009, she has been a professor and a PI at the School of Pharmacy and Food Sciences at the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB).

Her area of expertise is in adipose tissue biology, lipid metabolism and inflammation, with a specific focus on how they contribute to the development of obesity-induced diabetes. She has been trained at the most prestigious research centers in the diabetes field: Montréal Diabetes Research Center (Canada, 2001), Université de Geneve (Switzerland, 2002), Obesity Research Center-Boston University (USA, 2005) and Joslin Diabetes Center-Harvard University (USA, 2005-2008) under the supervision of leading investigators such as Marc Prentki, Claes B. Wollheim, Barbara E. Corkey and Steven E. Shoelson, respectively. During her training periods, she has made significant contributions to the field of diabetes and obesity, which include: the essential role of lipid metabolism in the pancreatic beta-cell insulin secretion (Diabetes 2005), the role of inflammation in the obese and lipodystrophic adipose tissue (PNAS 2010, Gastroenterology 2007) and the first-time discovery that diabetes is also an immune disease (Nature Metabolism 2009).

Since the establishment of her own research group, she has directed 18 PhD thesis, led several national (17) and international (4) grants as a PI, gave 54 invited lectures, organized 46 research events, and published 113 high level publications with an average of 633 citations/year in the last 5 years. She has received the Rising Star Award (2012) from Janssen/European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), Lilly/EASD Award (2012), L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in science (2013), Merck Health Foundation Award (2021), Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM)-IBUB Young investigator Award (2022) and Spanish Society of Obesity (SEEDO) Rising Star Award (2022).

Dr. Herrero has been a PI at the CIBEROBN (since 2022) and member of the direction board of SEBBM (2016-2020), CIBEROBN, (since 2023), IBUB (since 2016), Metabolism Network (MetNet, 2020-2024), Catalan Society of Biology (SCB, 2020-2024) and member of the Advisory Board of the Biochemical Pharmacology journal (since 2017). www.ub.edu/betaoxi