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Presidential Distinguished Lecturer C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., (center) visits with (from left) President Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., Robert Reddick, M.D., Marilyn Harrington, Ph.D., and Eileen Breslin, Ph.D., R.N. (Click on photo for a larger image.)
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SAN ANTONIO (Dec. 2, 2008) — The UT Health Science Center San Antonio’s seventh Presidential Distinguished Lecturer, C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., focused his presentation Dec. 2 on the molecular links that regulate insulin resistance, diabetes and metabolic syndrome — disease plagues of the 20th and 21st centuries.

An international expert in diabetes, Dr. Kahn and his team came up with the modern classical view of insulin action in the 1980s. Insulin is the hormone that is the major controller of blood glucose. Insulin resistance occurs when the body makes insulin, but tissues don’t respond to it.

Dr. Kahn is the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and vice chairman and section head at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. The Presidential Distinguished Lecture, sponsored by the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P., and initiated by President Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., invites luminaries like Dr. Kahn to the Health Science Center to inspire students from the five schools to make groundbreaking discoveries in their own careers.

2008 Presidential Distinguished Lecture Video: Dr. Ronald Kahn's Presentation

Diabetes is an epidemic of Western culture
Dr. Kahn noted the steep progression of type 2 diabetes in this country since 1990. Today 24 million Americans have diabetes, including 23 million with the type 2 form of the disease. Dr. Kahn said the modern Western lifestyle – inactivity and overeating – is driving the epidemic. “Every year we add one more million to that number,” he said. “The best way to stop this is to alter our lifestyle by exercising and eating healthily.”

Insulin activity is very diverse and every tissue can become insulin resistant, he said. Dr. Kahn showed how insulin resistance in different tissues of the body (liver, brain and fat, among them) contributes to metabolic syndrome. This syndrome is a dangerous cocktail of risk factors, including high blood pressure, poor blood lipid profile and fatty liver disease. The syndrome puts a person at greater risk for diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

During his presentation, Dr. Kahn showed results from worms and other nonhuman models in which certain genes’ activity was either raised or lowered. In one model, such alteration led to improved insulin sensitivity and blood lipid profile, and most interestingly, to a longer life.

Insulin action, he noted, is highly complex and involves many more proteins than previously imagined.

President Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., (left) discusses metabolic syndrome with Health Science Center diabetes researcher Franco Folli, M.D., Ph.D., (center), who was a fellow in the lab of C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., (right), the Distinguished Presidential Lecturer.

Connections to Health Science Center faculty
Prior to his lecture, Dr. Kahn visited the laboratory of Franco Folli, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine in the Division of Diabetes. Dr. Folli spent almost four years in Dr. Kahn’s laboratory in the 1990s, first as a fellow and then as a visiting professor. “Ron has been the most inspiring scientist and teacher in my life,” Dr. Folli said.

Dr. Kahn has published papers with Ralph DeFronzo, M.D., professor and chief of diabetes at the Health Science Center, and with former Health Science Center faculty member Lawrence Mandarino, Ph.D., now of Arizona State University. Dr. Kahn also knows Dr. Cigarroa from the president’s time at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Kahn also visited with community supporters of the Health Science Center and heard a presentation by the research team of Balakuntalam Kasinath, M.D., professor of medicine in the Division of Nephrology. Dr. Kahn has developed gene knockout transgenic mouse models for studies of the insulin receptor and has been kind enough to share them with other investigators, including Dr. Kasinath.

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $668 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $16.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $36 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 24,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and other health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, dentistry and many other fields. For more information, visit www.uthscsa.edu.