Harnessing Immunometabolism: Immune Niche Targeting for Better Metabolic Control
Event details
| Date | 28.01.2025 |
| Hour | 11:00 › 12:00 |
| Speaker | Gloria Ursino, Ph.D., University of Geneva (CH) |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
ONE-DAY METABOLISM MINI-SYMPOSIUM
(talk three / previous talk / next talk)
Abstract:
Metabolic impairments lead to the perturbation of local (and systemic) immune environments. Yet, insights into how to effectively exploit this in the treatment of metabolic disease are currently lacking. Insulin Deficiency (ID), which occurs due to loss or malfunction of insulin producing β-cells, presents with severe metabolic impairments and currently affects an estimated 100 million diabetic patients worldwide. Since its discovery over a century ago, lifelong exogenous insulin therapy remains the main method of managing ID. Yet, insulin therapy offers poor metabolic control and presents with significant safety concerns. Its chronic use also leads to the development of insulin resistance.
To this end, we have identified various anti-diabetic effects of modulating the S100A9-TLR4 axis in ID. Via acting in a TLR4 dependent manner in various local and resident immune cells, S100A9 was able to improve liver and skeletal muscle metabolism and exerted numerous glycemia lowering, lipid improving and anti-inflammatory effects in ID rodents. These results support the modulation of local immune environments as a strategy for improving metabolic control in ID. In particular, they highlight previously unknown ways immune cells can affect skeletal muscle metabolism. Therapeutically, they present S100A9 as realistic next-generation therapeutic for improved clinical management of ID.
Bio:
Gloria Ursino’s first interest in the interplay of immunity and metabolism occurred during her Bachelor and Honours studies at Monash University (Melbourne), where she uncovered sterile inflammation as a key driver of the development of congenital skin diseases caused by perturbed lipid metabolism. She contributed to identifying the aspirin derivative 4-Aminosalicylic acid (4ASA) as a lead compound for treating these conditions, offering a clinical strategy for the repurposing of anti-inflammatory drugs for use in skin conditions associated with lipid dysfunction.
Recognizing an important role for lipid metabolism in β-cell biology, she then jumped into the field of diabetes. During her PhD, she identified how defects in intracellular lipid metabolism and distribution caused by the loss of the lipid transporter ABCA12 affected insulin secretion from β-cells, and how this drives age-associated islet inflammation and infiltration of intra-islet macrophages.
Now at the University of Geneva, she has continued studying immunometabolism in the context of overt diabetes, focusing instead on how local immune environments in tissues such as the liver and skeletal muscle offer strategies to improve metabolic control. Here, she identified how the calcium binding protein S100A9 acts through immune cells in these tissues to exert numerous anti-diabetic effects. Combining her expertise in metabolism, immunometabolism and methods to study cellular cross talks, she now plans to investigate the uncharted domain of immune cell cross talks in skeletal muscle metabolism.
Zoom link for attending remotely, if needed: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/68708003718
(talk three / previous talk / next talk)
Abstract:
Metabolic impairments lead to the perturbation of local (and systemic) immune environments. Yet, insights into how to effectively exploit this in the treatment of metabolic disease are currently lacking. Insulin Deficiency (ID), which occurs due to loss or malfunction of insulin producing β-cells, presents with severe metabolic impairments and currently affects an estimated 100 million diabetic patients worldwide. Since its discovery over a century ago, lifelong exogenous insulin therapy remains the main method of managing ID. Yet, insulin therapy offers poor metabolic control and presents with significant safety concerns. Its chronic use also leads to the development of insulin resistance.
To this end, we have identified various anti-diabetic effects of modulating the S100A9-TLR4 axis in ID. Via acting in a TLR4 dependent manner in various local and resident immune cells, S100A9 was able to improve liver and skeletal muscle metabolism and exerted numerous glycemia lowering, lipid improving and anti-inflammatory effects in ID rodents. These results support the modulation of local immune environments as a strategy for improving metabolic control in ID. In particular, they highlight previously unknown ways immune cells can affect skeletal muscle metabolism. Therapeutically, they present S100A9 as realistic next-generation therapeutic for improved clinical management of ID.
Bio:
Gloria Ursino’s first interest in the interplay of immunity and metabolism occurred during her Bachelor and Honours studies at Monash University (Melbourne), where she uncovered sterile inflammation as a key driver of the development of congenital skin diseases caused by perturbed lipid metabolism. She contributed to identifying the aspirin derivative 4-Aminosalicylic acid (4ASA) as a lead compound for treating these conditions, offering a clinical strategy for the repurposing of anti-inflammatory drugs for use in skin conditions associated with lipid dysfunction.
Recognizing an important role for lipid metabolism in β-cell biology, she then jumped into the field of diabetes. During her PhD, she identified how defects in intracellular lipid metabolism and distribution caused by the loss of the lipid transporter ABCA12 affected insulin secretion from β-cells, and how this drives age-associated islet inflammation and infiltration of intra-islet macrophages.
Now at the University of Geneva, she has continued studying immunometabolism in the context of overt diabetes, focusing instead on how local immune environments in tissues such as the liver and skeletal muscle offer strategies to improve metabolic control. Here, she identified how the calcium binding protein S100A9 acts through immune cells in these tissues to exert numerous anti-diabetic effects. Combining her expertise in metabolism, immunometabolism and methods to study cellular cross talks, she now plans to investigate the uncharted domain of immune cell cross talks in skeletal muscle metabolism.
Zoom link for attending remotely, if needed: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/68708003718
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
Organizer
- Prof. Kristina Schoonjans, & Prof. Bart Deplancke, School of Life Sciences, EPFL
Contact
- Institute of Bioengineering (IBI), Dietrich REINHARD