July 22, 2010
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Anath Shalev, M.D., director of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism research in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been named the director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Diabetes Center.
Shalev, who also will be a professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, will join UAB Oct. 1, 2010.
UAB's Comprehensive Diabetes Center, a collaborative effort between UAB, the Children's Hospital of Alabama and members of the Birmingham community, comprises faculty who perform cutting-edge diabetes research and comprehensive education and training, and provide state-of-the-art clinical care to patients.
"Dr. Shalev is an outstanding clinician, prolific researcher and dedicated mentor," said Robert R. Rich, M.D., senior vice president and dean of the UAB School of Medicine. "She brings the compassion, energy, experience and leadership skills necessary to lead UAB's efforts at finding better treatments and eventually a cure for diabetes."
Shalev's primary clinical interests are in diabetes and thyroid disorders, including cancer. Her research focuses on pancreatic beta cell biology and diabetes complications, along with studies of the mechanisms of cell death and the regulation of gene transcription.
"UAB is at the forefront in efforts to better understand, treat and prevent diabetes," said Shalev. "It is an honor for me to have been chosen to help steer the effort to make the breakthroughs that will provide real hope to those with diabetes and their families."
Shalev's laboratory focuses on examining potential targets for therapeutic interventions to block programmed cell death, or apoptosis, of pancreatic beta cells. Apoptosis of pancreatic beta cells is a key feature of diabetes resulting in loss of adequate insulin production and elevated blood sugar. Finding a target that could be used to block beta cell apoptosis and thereby preserve the patient's own insulin production would represent a major breakthrough for diabetes therapy.
When performing the first human pancreatic islet microarray study, Shalev found a protein that responded dramatically to glucose. Mice with diabetes show a high concentration of this protein, and over-expression of the protein induced beta cell apoptosis. In contrast, deletion of this protein effectively rescued mice from diabetes, establishing it as an attractive target. Current work in the Shalev laboratory aims at identifying the pathways involved and discovering approaches to regulate them therapeutically.
Shalev earned her medical degree from the University of Basel, Switzerland in 1993 and completed a post-graduate scholarship in Experimental Medicine and Biology at the University of Zurich and a research fellowship at Harvard. She completed her training as a research fellow at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, one of the National Institutes of Health.
Shalev also is a member of the American Diabetes Association, The Endocrine Society and American Heart Association.
About the UAB Comprehensive Diabetes Center
The UAB Comprehensive Diabetes Center comprises faculty members conducting both clinical and basic research related to diabetes and its complications. Current areas of research include autoimmune type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, complications, genetics, epidemiology, transplantation, health disparities, community outreach, and intervention studies. Faculty research projects are supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, Department of Veterans Affairs and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.