Brown Fat in Health and Disease: From Clinical Phenotypes to Molecular Mechanisms
Event Details
- Type
- Monday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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Paul Cohen, M.D., Ph.D., Albert Resnick, M.D. Associate Professor, senior attending physician and head, Weslie R. and William H. Janeway Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism, The Rockefeller University
- Speaker bio(s)
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Over 2 billion adults worldwide are overweight or obese, and excess body weight significantly increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease, and many types of cancer. Little is known about how obesity contributes to the pathogenesis of these diseases, which in aggregate are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the developed world. The Cohen laboratory focuses on understanding how obesity leads to metabolic diseases and cancer with the ultimate goal of developing therapies to break the link between them. Their studies focus on the cell biology of white, brown, and beige fat and include translational studies in humans. They employ novel imaging and biochemical methods as part of a systems-based approach to address three interconnected themes: (1) Adipose Tissue Architecture and Function, (2) Novel Factors Secreted by Adipose Tissue and (3) Translational Studies Linking Adipose Tissue Function to Metabolic Health.
Paul Cohen earned his bachelor’s degree in biology at Harvard and his Ph.D. in 2003 from Rockefeller, where he was a member of Jeffrey M. Friedman’s lab. He received his M.D. in 2004 from Weill Cornell Medical College, through the Tri-Institutional M.D.-Ph.D. Program, and he then did a residency in internal medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. He trained in cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and did postdoctoral work in Bruce Spiegelman’s laboratory at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. He joined Rockefeller as an assistant professor in 2015 and was promoted to associate professor in 2021.
Cohen has received a DP1 award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award and was named an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine. In addition, he has been honored with a Mark Foundation Emerging Leader Award, a Rockefeller University Distinguished Teaching Award, an American Society of Clinical Investigation Young Physician-Scientist Award, an American Diabetes Association Accelerator Award, a Sinsheimer Award, a Human Frontier Science Program Young Investigator Grant, and an Irma T. Hirschl/Monique Weill-Caulier Trust Research Award. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
MLS lectures are only open to the RU community and will be taking place in Carson Family Auditorium and virtually via Zoom. Virtual participants are required to log in with their RU Zoom account and use their RU email address and password for authentication. We recommend signing out of VPN prior to logging in to the lecture. Please do not share the link or post on social media.
- Open to
- Campus Only