Request for Funding
Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2011

All descriptions must contain enough detail to permit an assessment of the problem that is to be addressed and the methodologies that are to be employed. Please be careful to outline the role that the student will play in the project that is described. Please ensure that all relevant approval numbers (IRB, IACUC) are provided.

Mentor: Jeffrey Zigman                                
Department:   Internal Medicine      
Room number:  Y6.220D    
Mail Code:     9077  
Phone number:          214-645-6422
E-mail:            Jeffrey.Zigman@utsouthwestern.edu        
Project title:    Response of gut hormones to weight loss surgery          

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):       092008-048

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):       2009-0377

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects)

Brief Description of Project:

Bariatric surgical procedures, and in particular, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), are extremely effective, resulting in profound weight-loss that is long-term, lowered mortality and amelioration of several comorbidities including a rapid improvement in blood glucose levels of obese diabetic individuals.  Altered release of gut hormones, including ghrelin, likely contributes to bariatric surgery-induced weight loss and improved glycemic control.  Changes to circulating gut hormone levels, in turn, likely lead to altered activation of key neurocircuits involved in eating and food-seeking behaviors.  We have assembled a multidisciplinary team to study the effects of weight loss surgery on brain activation and gut hormone levels.  We have collected plasma samples from our lean and pre-surgical obese human subjects, in both the fasted and fed states, and now need to process the samples to assess the levels of the many gut hormones of interest.  One of the primary responsibilities of the student will be to perform the assays.   There may be an opportunity to participate in new blood collections from the study subjects after surgery.  There will also be an opportunity to participate in several related animal behavioral studies where we examine the role of the gut hormone ghrelin in eating, food reward behavior, depression, and anxiety.  These studies will involve handling of mice. 

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:
Medical Student Summer Rotation Students Jakub Woloszyn 2008, Neha Chaudhary 2009

Perello M, Sakata I, Birnbaum S, Chuang J-C, Osborne-Lawrence S, Rovinsky SA, Woloszyn J, Yanagisawa M, Lutter M*, Zigman JM*.  Ghrelin increases the rewarding value of high fat diet in an orexin-dependent manner.  Biol Psychiatry 2010; 67:880-886.