Integrated Calendar

Obesity is associated with chronic low-grade inflammation that negatively impacts insulin sensitivity. High fat diet can increase NFB activation in mice, which leads to a sustained elevation in levels of the non-canonical IKKs, IB kinase  (IKK) and TBK1, in liver, adipocytes and adipose tissue macrophages. We explore the role of these enzymes by gene knockout and inhibitor studies. These data suggest that IKKand TBK1 play an important role in chronic inflammation in liver and fat, hepatic steatosis and whole-body insulin resistance. Blockade of the activity of these two kinases produces increased energy expenditure and thermogenesis, along with improved insulin resistance and fatty liver. We will discuss the role of inflammation and the NFkB pathway in the generation of insulin resistance and persistent obesity in metabolic disease.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is often used to produce spatial distribution maps of water in our body. However, by shaping the magnetic fields inside the scanner, one is able to excite and image nuclear magnetic moments in other biochemically interesting molecules. The high degree of control afforded by modern hardware allows us to propose intricate and elegant ways of coherently controlling the nuclear moments, and two such schemes will be presented. The resulting paradigms enable one to monitor in-vivo biochemistry with greater speed and resolution than before, opening up new possibilities of studying brain physiology.