Phone: (205) 934-6103
E-mail: garveyt@uab.edu

Research/Clinical Interest Description: Our studies involve the cellular and molecular biology of cell and animal models, metabolic investigations of human subjects on metabolic research wards, and the genetic basis of diseases in Gullah-speaking African Americans, Pima Indians, and national cohorts of diabetes patients. We bring basic technology directly to the study of human patients. Our combined approach of human physiology, genetics, and basic cell and molecular biology has provided the laboratory with a flexible capability for hypothesis testing relevant to human disease. By studying molecular parameters and differential gene expression in muscle and fat tissue from metabolically characterized individuals, we have made important observations regarding the pathogenesis of human insulin resistance. Currently, we are using cDNA microarray and mitochondrial proteomics to better define mitochondrial defects that impair substrate oxidation in human muscle from insulin resistant subjects. The laboratory is actively studying mechanisms of mitochondrial dysfunction contributing to muscle insulin resistance, and the role of secreted adipocyte factors in the pathogenesis of the Metabolic Syndrome.