Washington University in Saint Louis

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M. Alan Permutt

URL: http://mednews.wustl.edu/sb/page/normal/205.html

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Jim Dryden
Assoc. Dir. of Broadcast Services
jdryden@wustl.edu
(314) 286-0110

Director of the Diabetes Research and Training Center

Expertise: diabetes, intensive control of insulin depdendent diabetes, Wolfram syndrome, gene encoding, genetic aspects of type 2 diabetes

Bio: Permutt is a world leader in the study of the genetic basis of diabetes. He identified the first gene that played a role in type 2 diabetes and subsequently has identified other genes involved in the disease, including a gene that contributes to a rare form of insulin dependent diabetes called Wolfram syndrome.

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Showing 1 Clips.
Gene may increase risk for type 2 diabetes
Newsday and 15 others

April 26, 2004 -- Two international research teams have uncovered genetic variations that predispose people to develop type 2 diabetes. The School of Medicine team, led by Alan Permutt, professor of medicine at the School of Medicine, studied Ashkenazi Jews from Israel. A team from the National Institutes of Health examined the genetic roots of the disease in people from Finland. Both groups came up with the same results. The researchers discovered that type 2 diabetics are more likely than nondiabetics to inherit a group of common genetic variations in the control region of the hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha gene. The gene encodes a protein that regulates production of hundreds of other proteins important for the development and function of the liver and pancreas.



Additional Background: M. Alan Permutt, M.D., is a professor of medicine and of cell biology and physiology. He specializes in identifying genes linked to diabetes. His current studies include an evaluation of the genes that mediate insulin responses, testing the hypothesis that defects in those genes may be responsible for some of the inherited susceptibility to type 2 diabetes. He also conducts gene chip studies to identify and characterize genes involved in the development and function of the pancreas, and he studies genetically similar families of Ashkenazi Jews to learn about how risk for diabetes is inherited in families.

Permutt came to Washington University as a medical student in 1961. After completing his medical degree in 1965, he did an internship in medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital and a residency at the University of Washington in Seattle. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Seattle before returning to Washington University in St. Louis for a special NIH fellowship in the Department of Medicine's Metabolism Division. He joined the faculty as an instructor in Medicine in 1970 and rose to the rank of professor in 1985. He has directed the University's Diabetes Research and Training Center since 1997.


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