CAREER: Biomaterial Implants to Control Adipose Tissue Function

University Of South Carolina At Columbia, Columbia SC

Investigators

Abstract

The prevalence of obesity continues to rise, increasing the number of people at risk for chronic, deadly diseases, particularly type 2 diabetes, that are a major burden on the U.S. economy. Obesity’s health risks are linked to adipose/fat tissue dysfunction. Thus, there is an urgent need for technologies that minimize the health risks associated with this dysfunction. Fat is distributed throughout the body, beneath the skin and around vital organs. While it is widely known that fat stores excess calories consumed through diet, it is less well known that fat serves another important function of releasing molecules that support the health of tissues such as muscle and brain. Currently, the ability to control these important functions is limited to diet, exercise, and drugs, which present challenges for compliance or can have unpleasant side effects. The goal of this CAREER project is to develop devices for implant into fat that are designed to control its energy storage and release of health-promoting molecules. The research will provide education and outreach activities designed to recruit student veterans, a minority group in engineering strongly impacted by obesity and diabetes, and engage these individuals in cutting edge technology used in the development of biomedical devices. Overall, these efforts are designed to build a community to support veterans in engineering, foster their professional development, and facilitate their entrance into South Carolina’s STEM industries. The investigator’s long-term research goal is to develop, via creation of bio-instructive materials, translational therapies for atherosclerosis, diabetes, and cancer. Towards this goal, this CAREER project aims to develop an implantable tissue engineering scaffold that interfaces with adipose tissue to modulate its key regulatory functions, including fat storage, lipolysis, glucose uptake, and production of secreted factors that regulate health and metabolism throughout the body. The project will elucidate the biomaterial implant’s effects on the adipose tissue transcriptome in vivo and study the implant’s interactions with adipocytes and macrophages in vitro to determine why these effects occur. Finally, knowledge gained will be focused to understand if the implant can address adipose tissue dysfunction associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes. The Research Plan is organized under three aims: (1) Use RNA-seq to comprehensively define the impact of tissue engineering scaffolds on adipose tissue gene expression; (2) Determine how scaffolds modulate adipose tissue metabolism; and (3) Determine if scaffolds can mitigate adipose tissue overexpansion and hyperglycemia that occurs with overnutrition using a mouse model of diet induced obesity. This project is jointly funded by the Engineering of Biomedical Systems (EBMS) Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.