What further research do you have planned, or are looking forward to, in this area?
This is the most fun part of what we do, and I’ve been fortunate to have an amazing team passionately working on these questions.
One is to figure out why glucose is so important for these fascinating cells, which will keep us busy for years. We also need to modify the dietary conditions to determine whether the body prioritizes the use of glucose for adaptive thermogenesis even when there isn’t much available.
Another goal is to test whether any of the other metabolites we identified have bioactive functions. We also discovered a unique role for glutamine metabolism in brown fat, through the consumption of amino acids, that we haven’t yet resolved.
Finally, we want to understand how and why brown fat protects other organs from metabolic diseases, and we are just at the tip of the iceberg here.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; the National Heart, Lung, & Blood Institute; the National Institutes of Health; the AASLD Foundation Pinnacle Research Award in Liver Disease; the Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation Award; and the Basic Science Research Program of the Ministry of Education (South Korea). No relevant financial relationships were disclosed.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.