UT Southwestern's obesity research receives $22 million NIH Roa...( DALLAS Sept. 6 2007 UT Southwester...),Health

DALLAS Sept. 6, 2007 UT Southwestern Medical Centers obesity research team has received a $22 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to enhance its groundbreaking efforts to attack obesity from every angle, from studying fat cells to developing medicines.

The award, formally announced today, is one of nine interdisciplinary research consortia sponsored by the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. These groups seek to solve difficult problems by blending approaches from multiple biomedical research disciplines.

UT Southwesterns group is the only one focused on obesity.

The money, to be given over five years, fortifies UT Southwesterns Task Force for Obesity Research, a team of scientists and clinicians who are investigating the behavioral, molecular and metabolic mechanisms behind obesity and metabolic disorders.

This extends and strengthens our task forces ability to conduct studies to gain much-needed insight into the key molecular pathways that govern energy metabolism and translate that into the development of new approaches to prevent obesity and treat associated metabolic complications, such as heart disease and diabetes, said Dr. Jay Horton, associate professor of internal medicine and molecular genetics and the grants coordinating investigator.

The grant comes at a time when waistlines are bulging. Two-thirds of adults in America are overweight or obese, raising their risk of developing health maladies including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, fatty liver disease and others.

But the reasons why obesity and these conditions go hand-in-hand are largely unknown.

To help answer these questions, UT Southwesterns Task Force for Obesity Research was formed in 2004 with a three-year, $1.78 million planning grant that also was part of the NIH Roadmap.

The UT Southwestern group comprises 29 scientists from different backgrounds, including genetics, endocrinology, nutrition, ne
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