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Ron Alfa
Neurosciences/MSTP
Bio-X Graduate Student Fellow 2011/2012
Professor Seung Kim (Developmental Biology)
Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease defined clinically by increased blood glucose levels resulting from de-creased peripheral insulin sensitivity or impaired in insulin secretion by pancreatic beta cells. While dia-betes mellitus is historically one of the oldest diseas-es, the complex genetics underlying the most preva-lent form, type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), are only beginning to be elucidated. Ron’s work is directed at harnessing the powerful genetics of the fruit fly, Dro-sophila melanogaster, to study the genetics of diabetic states. To this end, he is drawing on approaches from the neurosciences and bioengineering to study metab-olism and glucose homeostasis in the fly. |
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