Event
Bioengineering Seminar Series: Christian Metallo
Friday, January 29, 2016
9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
Pepco Room (1105), Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building
Dr. Christopher Jewell
cmjewell@umd.edu
Christian Metallo
Assistant Professor
Department of Bioengineering
University of California, San Diego
Understanding the role of metabolism in disease using isotope tracing and flux analysis
Metabolism is central to virtually all cellular functions and contributes to a range of diseases. A detailed understanding of how biochemical pathways are regulated is necessary to control cell function and identify therapeutic targets in diseases where metabolism is dysfunctional, including cancer, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. Quantitative information describing the flow of metabolites through biochemical networks provides critical insights into how different nutrients contribute to energy metabolism and biosynthesis. To this end we apply stable isotope tracers, mass spectrometry, and metabolic flux analysis (MFA) to study central metabolism in mammalian cells. Using these approaches we have characterized how proliferating and differentiated cells regulate flux of glucose and amino acids into mitochondria for lipid biosynthesis. We have also applied MFA to cancer cells with specific metabolic defects to identify enzyme targets that selectively inhibit growth. Finally, we have applied metabolomics to identify a unique metabolic pathway that modulates inflammation in macrophages. The application of MFA to disease models greatly improves our ability to characterize intracellular metabolic processes, providing a mechanistic understanding of cellular physiology and metabolic function.
About the Speaker
Christian Metallo joined the University of California, San Diego in 2011 and is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering. He received his bachelor’s in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000 before joining Merck Research Laboratories to conduct bioprocess engineering research. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2008 and was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Christian was the recipient of the Biomedical Engineering Society Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award in 2012, a 2013 Searle Scholar Award, and a 2015 NSF CAREER Award.
