CAMBRIDGE, MA – Why are some people overweight, no matter what they try, whereas for others, being slim and trim comes naturally? Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including Greek-American Manolis Kellis, think they have found the answer.
They have discovered a new genetic pathway that controls metabolism, i.e., whether excess fat is burned or stored.
“Obesity has traditionally been seen as the result of an imbalance between the amount of food we eat and how much we exercise, but this view ignores the contribution of genetics to each individual’s metabolism,” Kellis says.
The researchers showed that they could indeed manipulate this new pathway to reverse the signatures of obesity in both human cells and mice, MIT announced.
MIT Professor Manolis Kellis
By manipulating this new pathway, we could switch between energy storage and energy dissipation programs at both the cellular and the organismal level, providing new hope for a cure against obesity,” Kellis says.
The researchers are currently establishing collaborations in academia and industry to translate their findings into obesity therapeutics. They are also using their approach as a model to understand the circuitry of other disease-associated regions in the human genome.
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