Discoveries

Old drug may point the way to new treatments for diabetes and obesity

Feb. 10, 2013—Researchers at the University of Michigan’s Life Sciences Institute have found that amlexanox, an off-patent drug currently prescribed for the treatment of asthma and other uses, also reverses obesity, diabetes and fatty liver in mice. The findings from the lab of Alan Saltiel, the Mary Sue Coleman director of the Life Sciences Institute, were published online Feb. 10 in the journal Nature Medicine.

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A gene that acts as a master switch to control obesity in mice

Sept. 4, 2009—In a paper published in Cell, LSI director Alan Saltiel and his colleagues show that deleting, or "knocking out," the IKKE gene not only protected high-fat-diet mice from obesity, it prevented chronic inflammation, a fatty liver and insulin resistance, as well.

If follow-up studies show that IKKE is tied to obesity in humans, the gene and the protein it makes will be prime targets for the development of drugs to treat obesity, diabetes and complications associated with those disorders, Saltiel said.

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When good cells go bad by the fat company they keep

Jan. 2, 2007—A new study by LSI Director Alan Saltiel and collaborators links obesity, inflammation and diabetes to macrophages, and is featured on the cover of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

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LSI researchers isolate gene causing expanding waistline

May 5, 2006—LSI research professors Alan Saltiel and Steve Weiss and their colleagues have found a gene that may cause obesity. The product of this gene acts as a metabolic pair of scissors, cutting through the collagen tissue network, subsequently freeing adipocyte cells to expand in the belly.

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