Pablo Enriori

Background

About Pablo Enriori

I am a scientist with more than twenty years of basic and clinic research experience in Endocrinology and Biochemistry. I have experience in a broad range of academic disciplines including animal physiology, neuroanatomy, cell biology and molecular biology techniques.I have been involved in: • Creation and characterisation of two new animal models of dietary obesity (an obese mouse model fed on high fat diet and a non-human primate model; both models replicates most of the phenomenon observed in human obesity). • Drug development for two pharmaceutical companies (Novo Nordisk, from Denmark and Orexigen Therapeutics, from USA). • Development of two new methodologies to study the neural circuitry responses to signals of energy status (both methods were patented). I received the Technology Innovation awards 2008 (OHSU) for one of them. • Participation in clinical trials involving obese humans: Clinical study of obese children (Germany), and the obese adult Pima Indian clinical studies (USA). I am interested in determining how obesity can disrupt the physiological processes of energy balance and glucose homeostasis, and how these perturbations can be pharmacologically improved. • A second over-arching theme of my research is to understand the gender differences in the regulation of body weight and its consequences for metabolic syndrome. I have a particular interest in understanding how estrogen modulates leptin sensitivity in the melanocortin circuit. • Thus far, my greatest research achievements have been in demonstrating how the brain becomes resistant to peripheral signals that regulate energy balance. Furthermore, I have identified a set of specialized neurons in the brain that not only detect glucose, but also regulate blood glucose levels. These findings may lead to the development of pharmacological targets to treat high blood pressure, insulin resistance/diabetes and obesity.