Medicine Grand Rounds – Nuclear Receptors and Diabetes: Feast, Famine, and Physiology

When:
August 31, 2016 @ 8:00 am – 9:00 am
2016-08-31T08:00:00-07:00
2016-08-31T09:00:00-07:00
Where:
Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge, Berg Hall, 2nd Floor
Stanford University
300 Pasteur Drive, Stanford, CA 94304
USA
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Department of Medicine
650-721-1166
Medicine Grand Rounds - Nuclear Receptors and Diabetes: Feast, Famine, and Physiology @ Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge, Berg Hall, 2nd Floor | Stanford | California | United States

Presenter: Ron Evans, PhD
Professor and Director
Salk Gene Expression Laboratory

Ronald Evans is an authority on hormones, both their normal activities and their roles in disease. A major achievement in Evans’ lab was the discovery of a large family of molecules, called nuclear hormone receptors, which respond to various steroid hormones, vitamin A and thyroid hormones. These hormones help control sugar, salt, calcium and fat metabolism, affecting our daily health as well as treatment of disease. The receptors Evans discovered are primary targets in the treatment of breast cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer and leukemia, as well as osteoporosis and asthma.

In addition, Evans’ studies led to a new class of drugs called exercise mimetics, which promote the benefits of fitness without the need to train. Exercise mimetics represent one of the newest and most important advances in addressing problems arising from excess weight and obesity, such as frailty, muscular dystrophy and the potential treatment of adult onset diabetes (type 2 diabetes).