Christoph Buettner, MD, PhD Email Christoph Buettner

Christoph Buettner, MD, PhD, is a Professor in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Buettner is also Associate Director for Research in Type 2 Diabetes at the Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute (DOMI), and Professor in the Department of Neuroscience. He is board certified in Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes and Internal Medicine. He is a member of numerous grant review panels, editorial boards, and has been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation.

The Buettner Laboratory for Metabolism and Diabetes is studying how and why obesity and diabetes disturb glucose and fat metabolism, impair the action of the hormone insulin, are associated with inflammation and what the role of the brain is in this metabolic dysregulation. One emphasis has been to define brain insulin action in regulating specific metabolic pathways in peripheral organs such as liver and fat, and how nutrients in turn can affect brain function and inflammation. A variety of conditions/diseases impair the regulation of metabolism through the CNS such as Alzheimers, psychiatric diseases, alcohol consumption and stress impair the ability of the brain to control metabolism. In obesity and diabetes the ability of the brain to process important signals from the periphery such as sensing hormones and nutrients is similarly impaired and a major goal of the lab is to restore metabolic control  in these conditions by the brain. Approaches that are commonly applied in the lab are to study nutrient partitioning using metabolic tracers during euglycemic clamps in rodents that allow the simultaneous assessment of lipid, glucose and amino acid fluxes. These physiological study techniques are complemented by transcriptional, proteomic and metabolomic analysis to arrive at a molecular understanding of how the brain controls nutrient fluxes in peripheral organs such as liver and adipose tissue.

Team: Andy Shin, PhD Henry Ruiz, PhD Ling Wang, BS Elaine Dellinger, BA Keval Shah, MD Stefanie Chen, MS