Scientific topics
Keywords
ITMO
Fawaz Alzaid PhD Nutrition
Course and current status
Current position
Research Associate (tenure since October 2017) - Cordeliers Research Centre - French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), Sorbonne Universités, Université de Paris.
Research associate and junior group leader investigating metabolic regulation of inflammation. My group consists of 1 PhD student, 1 post-doc and 2 technical staff. Current projects target cellular bioenergetics of innate immunity, transcriptional mechanisms of tissue inflammation and immunophenotypic analysis of human blood in type-2 diabetes, its complications and comorbidities. The Bioenergetics Group, that I lead, forms part of the Immunity and Metabolism Team headed by Dr. N. Venteclef.
My research highlights for this period include the award of a Young Researchers Starter grant from the National Research Agency (ANR) and publications as lead and contributing author in EMBO Molecular Medicine, Cell Reports and Nature Communications investigating mechanisms of tissue inflammation in type-2 diabetes and markers of susceptibility to severe COVID-19.
Previous positions
Post-doctoral fellowship (2014-2017) - Cordeliers Research Centre - French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM).
I worked mainly on two projects investigating Interferon Regulatory Factor (IRF)-5-mediated inflammation in adipose tissue during diet-induced obesity and in the liver during the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. In this position I was supervised by Dr. N. Venteclef, as part of Dr. F. Foufelle’s team Clinical and Cellular Pathogenesis of Diabetes.
My research highlights from this period include first and contributing author publications in Nature Medicine and JCI Insight.
Post-doctoral fellowship (2013-2014) – Endocrinology and Metabolism, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom.
I carried out a human study to establish reference ranges of the orexigenic hypothalamic peptide Melanin-Concentrating Hormone (MCH) in peripheral circulation. This study was carried out under the supervision of Dr. J. Naufahu and Prof. J. Murray and was published in the Journal of Endocrinology.
Scientific summary
Cells of the immune system, like those of any other, require their own metabolism to function appropriately. Diabetes is a disease of largely metabolic aetiology, yet it is now widely considered an inflammatory condition. This inflammation arises from the aberrant activation of the immune system. The Bioenergetics Group derives its name from understanding how these two worlds interact, the metabolic disturbance in diabetes and the bioenergetic response of the body’s immune system.
