The Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center (AIMRC) will host Teresa Zimmers, professor of cell, developmental and cancer biology at the Oregon Health & Sciences University School of Medicine, at 12:55 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 29, on Zoom.

Zimmers' research focuses on cachexia — systemic inflammation and dysmetabolism afflicting patients with burns, trauma, injury, and chronic diseases including advanced cancer.

Abstract: Cachexia, or unintentional weight loss due to injury, infection or illness, results in adipose and muscle wasting. In the contexts of liver injury and pancreatic cancer, we provide evidence from mouse models, human biospecimens and a clinical trial to evaluate mechanisms, manifestations, and a potential evolutionary rationale for cachexia.

Biography: Zimmers is leader of the Cancer Biology Research Program in the Knight Cancer Institute, and co-leader of the Patient Resiliency Program in the Brenden Colson Center for Pancreatic Care at OHSU Knight. She is also a research scientist at the Portland Veterans Administration Medical Center. Her current research focuses upon cachexia — systemic inflammation and dysmetabolism afflicting patients with burns, trauma, injury, and chronic diseases including advanced cancer. Leveraging approaches across the translational spectrum, her group has identified targetable pathways leading to muscle wasting and cachexia, including GDF15, OSM/IL6;IL11/STAT3, Activin;GDF11;Myostatin/SMAD and SHH/GLI pathways. She is co-founder and immediate past president of the Cancer Cachexia Society and works within and beyond her laboratory to advance understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer cachexia.

This event is supported by NIGMS of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P20GM139768. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

This seminar will only be available via Zoom.

Please contact Kimberley Fuller, fullerk@uark.edu, for more information.