Johanna DiStefano, Ph.D.
Director

The primary goal of the Diabetes, Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases Division is to improve prevention and treatment strategies for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorders including obesity, metabolic syndrome, and endocrine diseases. Understanding the determinants of metabolic diseases allows us to predict who is at greatest risk of developing diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, which is the first step toward prevention. Because diabetes, CVD and other metabolic disorders develop long before they are diagnosed, efforts to improve detection strategies are critically needed to decrease morbidity and decrease mortality. For those individuals living with diabetes, CVD, or obesity, more effective therapeutic options will improve quality and quantity of life in these patients and lessen the risk of developing complications second to these disease. The major goal of the Diabetes, Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases Division is in complete accord with the guiding mission of TGen to develop earlier diagnostics and smarter treatments.

There are three disease-focused research units within the Diabetes, Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases Division which have been created to achieve an enhanced mechanistic understanding of disease process, identify targets for diagnostic and therapeutic treatments, develop improved treatment strategies based on personalized medicine approaches for metabolic diseases, and identify at-risk individuals for prevention strategies. Each research unit will utilize interconnected strategies and tools to identify targets, interpret molecular data and translate results in predictive models, assess functionality, and evaluate clinical value and effectiveness.

Diabetes Research Unit
Cardiovascular Disease Research Unit
Obesity and Metabolic Disorders Research Unit

Each research unit represents an unique cross-pollination among basic research investigators, clinicians, and industrial partners and engages expertise focused on critical research areas such as development of systems biology tools, predictive biomarkers, and therapeutic targets. Together, these strategies will accelerate disease prediction, treatment, and prevention.

TGen is part of the nationally recognized Family Investigation of Nephropathy in Diabetes (FIND) Consortium, which is an NIH-funded effort to identify genetic pathways critical for the development of kidney disease. The FIND Consortium is comprised of investigators from TGen, Case Western Reserve University; University of California, Los Angeles; Harbor-University of California Los Angeles Medical Center; University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio; Wake Forest University School of Medicine; Johns Hopkins University; University of New Mexico School of Medicine; and NIDDK/Phoenix. The FIND Consortium has already identified several key loci underlying kidney disease attributed to diabetes in African Americans, Non-Hispanic Caucasians, Mexican Americans, and American Indians. These results will ultimately lead to candidates amenable to therapeutic strategies to prevent the onset or progression of nephropathy. Such data will also aid identification of people at risk for the development of progressive renal disease.

In partnership with the City of Avondale and Sun Health, TGen has also been engaged in a number of programs designed to help Avondale residents improve their health. TGen investigators performed a detailed survey including demographic, lifestyle, acculturation, clinical and anthropometric components in Mexican/Mexican American community members and identified high prevalence of key chronic diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and obesity in adults and children. These findings were used to develop culturally sensitive education and intervention strategies in this community, and importantly, will enable identification of environmental and genetic risk factors for these diseases.