Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism Research Faculty

Dr. Sun’s lab uses a multifaceted approach built on functional genomics, metabolomics, genome editing, and sophisticated animal models to address the epigenomic regulation of intermediary metabolism and neurocognition. In a recent paper in Nature Medicine, he described how the internal circadian clock in muscles regulates the diurnal oscillation between fatty acid oxidation and carbohydrate utilization. In a paper published in Nature Neuroscience, he described de novo genetic variants of the nuclear receptor corepressor genes, NCOR1/2, in pediatric patients with autism. The lab has recently received two R01 and one R21 grants from the NIH.

Dr. Hartig pursues the etiology of metabolic diseases and, ultimately, beneficial treatments for type 2 diabetes. His lab seeks to understand how subcutaneous white fat deposits uncouple obesity from insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The Hartig lab discovered that the non-coding RNA miR-30a protects obese mice from type 2 diabetes and its complications. A paper describing this discovery appeared in Diabetes. His lab is also interested in the endocrine and immune signals that impinge upon adipose tissue expandability and, consequently, the metabolic function of other connected peripheral organs. His lab is funded by grants from the NIH and the American Diabetes Association.

Dr. Villareal, a physician-scientist with specialty training in geriatrics and endocrinology, performed the first systematic evaluation of sarcopenic obesity, in which he discovered that frailty is common in obese older adults, despite appearing opposite of the stereotypical frail older adult. He performed the first randomized controlled trial showing that it may never be too late in life to change life-long unhealthy dietary and physical activity habits. He published two such trials in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that weight loss plus combined aerobic and resistance training are very effective in improving functional status of obese older adults. Dr. Villareal’s work shows that functional problems associated with obesity in older adults can be addressed safely through weight loss. Dr. Villareal's lab is funded by grants from the NIH and the Merit Review program of the Veterans Administration.

Dr. Mediwala is a master clinician and deputy director of the Baylor College of Medicine Endocrine Fellowship Program. He is co-investigator with Dr. Dennis Villareal and Dr. Reina Villareal, assessing bone material strength in individuals enrolled in lifestyle and pharmacologic interventions for weight loss and hypogonadism. He also works with Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan in assessing telehealth management of diabetes and Dr. Marco Marcelli in a project studying endocrine abnormalities in a cohort of patients undergoing liver transplantation and chronic opioid treatment.

Dr. Ram serves in the section as a clinical educator, clinician, academic administrator, and clinical researcher. She directs a unique diabetic ketoacidosis clinic, where she sees patients previously discharged from the hospital after an episode of diabetic ketoacidosis. Ketosis-prone diabetes is one of her clinical research interests.

Dr. Gaba is a clinical researcher who runs a ketosis prone diabetes clinic and a first-of-its-kind multidisciplinary fatty liver clinic in collaboration with the gastroenterology service, where she serves as co-investigator in several therapeutic clinical trials for the treatment and prevention of NASH.

Dr. Villareal is physician scientist studying the genetic determinants of gonadal steroid metabolism and bone biology. Her research has recently expanded into investigating the effect of testosterone on bone metabolism in men with impaired glucose homeostasis and in finding ways of reversing obesity-associated hypogonadism. She has funding from both the National Institutes of Health and the VA Merit Review.

Dr. Bajaj's research interests initiatives include clinical and translational research in pathophysiology/treatment of type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance, diabetes secondary to pancreatic disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and obesity and its complications.

Dr. Sekhar is an expert in nutrient metabolism and mitochondrial energetics. He adopted a translational approach using a combination of human and rodent studies to dissect mechanisms underlying abnormalities in mitochondrial fuel metabolism, to develop nutritional interventions to reverse these defects. He discovered and reported that the endogenous intracellular antioxidant Glutathione is critically important for optimal mitochondrial fat oxidation in rodents and that the same mechanisms are operant in elderly humans and HIV patients. Dr. Sekhar is completing clinical trials in aging and HIV where he investigated mechanisms contributing to mitochondrial impairment and its reversal in humans. He is currently funded by an R01 grant to conduct a clinical trial to investigate the metabolic basis of Alzheimer’s disease. His expertise in nutrient metabolism is reflected by several first and senior-authored and co-authored manuscripts studying abnormalities in lipid, carbohydrate and protein metabolism in humans with aging, HIV, diabetes and growth hormone deficiency. He is skilled in the use of stable isotope techniques and other metabolic tools to dissect biochemical pathways involving energy metabolism in vivo in humans and rodents.

Dr. Balasubramanyam is a translational investigator in metabolism, diabetes and adipocyte biology, and a member of the Translational Metabolism Unit within the Baylor Diabetes Research Center, with a long-standing interest in unusual and emerging phenotypes of metabolic disease, including Ketosis-Prone Diabetes (KPD) and HIV-associated dyslipidemic lipodystrophy. His team has characterized novel syndromes of KPD at the clinical, biochemical, genetic and metabolic levels and has pioneered the integration of metabolomic and stable isotope kinetic approaches to specify the pathophysiology of these patients. He has a broad interest in understanding complex pathophysiology of metabolic diseases through the identification and investigation of patients with variant or unusual phenotypes. As current Director of Baylor’s Clinical Scientist Training Program, he is deeply involved in the development of physician-scientists at all levels of training, and is a mentor to numerous junior investigators. In his present role as Vice-President for Academic Integration at Baylor College of Medicine, he is involved in leading the institution’s strategy for developing a network-wide population health and precision medicine initiative, a cornerstone of which is to develop a comprehensive program for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiometabolic disease.

The Guan lab explores the intra- and interorgan communications of time signals able to modulate the physiological function in metabolic disorders and cancer. The understanding of these time signals, including gene expression, chromatin remodeling, epigenetics modification, translation control, and metabolites turnover under various genetic backgrounds and environmental stress exert a profound influence on human health – optimized timing for medication and meals. In a recent paper in Cell, he discovered that a short-acting PPAR-alpha drug reduced liver fat more when it was given in the afternoon than when it was given in the morning in diet-induced obesity mice. In a paper published in Science, he described that timing of meals affects clock communication between different cell types in liver. His lab is funded by grants from the NIH (K01 award) and  Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT Scholar).

The Zhao lab aims to better understand the neurobiology of interoception—the ability to precisely sense the body’s internal states in a timely manner. Our interoceptive system enables us to continuously monitor and map the ever-changing landscape within our bodies, maintain physiological homeostasis, provide motivational drivers, and shape our thoughts and emotions. Yet the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms, as well as the neurocircuitry, remain ill-defined. We will apply state-of-the-art approaches in neuroscience, immunology, metabolism, genetics, and computational analysis to address fundamental questions in body-brain crosstalk, such as neuro-immune interaction and neuro-metabolic communication. Dr. Zhao has published several papers in top-tier journals, including Nature and Neuron. His lab is funded by grants from the McNair Medical Institute (McNair Scholar), the Warren Alpert Foundation, and the American Heart Association.