The Rutgers Center for Lipid Research (RCLR) held its seventh annual symposium in November at the New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health on Cook Campus with the theme, “Into the Lipidverse.” The symposium was organized by early-career researchers Anastasia Diolintzi, Camille Duchamp, Ruta Jog, and Liming Wang, and brought together an outstanding group of both established and early-career investigators who shared their knowledge, results, and insights into how lipids are involved in various physiological processes.
Speaker sessions covered a range of lipid-related topics. Susan K. Fried (Mount Sinai School of Medicine) started the symposium with an outstanding presentation on the adipose tissue growth and function to maintain metabolic health. Jessica Ferrell (Northeast Ohio Medical University) then spoke about the bile acid receptor Tgr5 and high fat, high sugar-induced liver injury. She was followed by Jeremy Baskin (Cornell University) who highlighted his work on click chemistry and optogenetics approaches to phosphatidic acid signaling.
Following the lunch and lively poster session, James Granneman (Wayne State University) spoke about lipolysis regulation in the light of evolution. Finally, Susmita Kaushik (Albert Einstein School of Medicine) presented her work on chaperone-mediated autophagy and regulation of lipid metabolism.
Priyanka Sharma, winner of the Carman Prize 2022, pictured with George Carman.
Priyanki Sharma and Shoily Khondker were awarded the George M. and Maureen D. Carman Prize in Lipids, an endowed prize to encourage lipid-related research of students and postdocs at SEBS. Best poster awards were presented to Ruta Jog, Youn-Kyung Kim, Liming Wang and Dhruv Champaneri.
The symposium, which was attended by more than 100 participants, drew researchers from the three Rutgers campuses along with scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York University, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Columbia University, Weill Cornell Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University and local Pharma and biotech companies.
The RCLR is a center of the New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health that promotes multidisciplinary research on the biochemical, biophysical, cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in lipid metabolism, and extends this information to the underpinnings of lipid-based diseases such as obesity, lipodystrophy, diabetes, and heart disease. RCLR fosters interaction among faculty, postdoctoral associates, and students across the university. For more information on the RCLR, visit rclr.rutgers.edu.
