(left to right) Ohio University graduate student
Lucila Sackmann Sala; Gabriel A. Martos-Moreno, M.D., Ph.D.,
pediatric endocrinologist in the Department of Endocrinology at
the Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús in Madrid, Spain;
and John Kopchick, Ph.D., professor of molecular and
cellular biology at Ohio University College of Osteopathic
Medicine and Goll-Ohio Eminent Scholar, discuss test results in
Kopchick’s laboratory at the Edison Biotechnology Institute.
by Kevin M. Sanders
March 17, 2008
In recent years Americans have
gotten the bad news: our children — as the rest of
us — are getting fatter. More than 20
percent of the adult American population is overweight
and/or obese, and the percentage of overweight children is
approaching these numbers. The rest of the industrialized world
— not as flush in fast foods and video gaming — seemed to be not
so fat.
But childhood obesity is on the
rise in Spain and other countries as well, says Gabriel A.
Martos-Moreno, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric endocrinologist who is
joining John Kopchick, Ph.D., at the Edison Biotechnology
Institute and Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine (OU-COM)
to continue his research of the alarming problem at Ohio
University’s Edison Biotechnology Institute. Working with
Kopchick, who is a professor of
molecular and cellular biology and Goll-Ohio Eminent Scholar at
OU-COM, Martos-Moreno will spend the next several months seeking
to unlock the molecular and genetic keys of the spreading health
problem. Kopchick, an established pioneer in the human growth
hormone field, has for the last several years been studying the
genetic and molecular basis for obesity and diabetes. Martos-Moreno
and Kopchick met at a conference in Seville in 2004. Kopchick
has been a friend and colleague of Martos-Moreno’s boss, Jesus
Argente, M.D., for several years.
“In Europe and particularly in
Spain, obesity was thought to be a problem abroad. We had always
thought of it as a problem for Americans,” says Martos-Moreno, a
fellow in pediatric endocrinology at the Department of
Endocrinology of the Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús
in Madrid, Spain. “But (in Spain) we’ve come to realize that not
only in adults but for children as well, during the last 20
years obesity has increased its prevalence from about
four-and-a-half or five percent to about 15 percent. It’s
tripled. It’s a trend quite similar to the one in the United
States. The trend lines were nearly parallel. It’s the same
problem in both countries.”
Teaming with
Martos-Moreno, says Kopchick, will allow him to continue
extending his research with human adipose (fat) tissue in search
of bio-markers of obesity and diabetes, which are highly
correlated with each other.
In Kopchick’s
Edison laboratory, Martos-Moreno will be studying serum (blood)
samples of his Spanish patients — both before and after weight
losses.
Kopchick and his
colleagues, Darlene Berryman, Ph.D., and graduate student
Lucila Sackmann Sala, will be studying human tissue samples he
has received from Dexter Blome, M.D., Ph.D., the chief of
plastic surgery at Mt. Carmel East Hospital, a Centers for
Osteopathic Research and Education hospital in Columbus.
Kopchick will study mouse adipose tissue, as well.
Martos-Moreno and
Kopchick will make a range of comparisons of adipose and serum
samples at the genetic and molecular levels in order to
determine the proteins that are expressed in these tissues as a
function of diabetes, pre-diabetes and obesity.
“These
investigations can shed a little bit of light on understanding
the real expression of proteins in human obesity,” says Martos-Moreno.
Both researchers hope their findings will eventually help lead
to the development of medicines and therapies effective for
treating and, perhaps, even curing obesity and diabetes. Also,
protein biomarkers or diagnostics that may be discovered could
allow for early detection of pre-diabetes.
As a practicing pediatrician,
Martos-Moreno says he came to see that the problems of obese
children were not being studied as well as he thought they could
be. These patients needed more attention, he says, if they were
going to get healthy and stay healthy.
“We’re honored to
have Dr. Martos collaborate with us,” says Kopchick, considering
he could have chosen other universities to do so. “It’s
prestigious for Ohio University to have Dr. Martos here.”
In addition to
his laboratory research, Martos-Moreno will work with C.
Thomas Clark, D.O., chairman of the Department of Pediatrics
at OU-COM. Although he won’t be licensed to practice medicine in
the United States, he will be able to observe patients with
Clark and will lecture medical students.
“It’s a great privilege to have
him as part of the department of pediatrics,” says Clark. “Even
though he’ll be limited to education and didactics, it’s a real
stimulus for the pediatrics department to have him on board as a
visiting professor of pediatrics until he leaves in November.”
Martos-Moreno will also be
working in collaboration with Karen Montgomery-Reagan, D.O.,
associate chairwoman of pediatrics, and Andrew Wapner, D.O.,
a pediatric diabetologist.
“I wanted to have
the experience of living here and seeing the way you work,” says
Martos-Moreno, whose stay is funded by the Spanish government.
Not only just this single investigation, he says, but to observe
a broader range of the ways research is conducted in America.
“Most of all,
after meeting John, we both saw a great opportunity to push
further a common line of scientific investigation that we
shared.”
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