Jason K. Kim, an internationally renowned scientist in the field of Type 2 diabetes and obesity, professor of molecular medicine and director of the Metabolic Disease Research Center at UMass Chan Medical School, will present the latest Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series event Tuesday, Oct. 24, from 1-3 p.m. in the Commonwealth Honors College East Room. Light refreshments will be served.

Image

Obesity is a leading cause of Type 2 diabetes, and inflammation plays a critical role as a molecular link. Kim’s lecture, “Orchestrating Immunological Symphony in Type 2 Diabetes,” will discuss how inflammation causes insulin resistance, an early characteristic of Type 2 diabetes, as cytokines regulate glucose metabolism in skeletal muscle and liver. Pro-inflammatory macrophages are involved in this obesity-mediated event, including liver disease. In all, obesity and aging are physiological states of low-grade, systemic inflammation and Kim will discuss how metabolic diseases – such as Type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis – may be treated by targeting our body’s immunological system.

Kim received his bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine in 1991 and a Doctorate in Physiology and Biophysics from USC in 1996. He began his academic career as an assistant professor in the section of endocrinology and metabolism at Yale Medical School in 2002, moved to Penn State College of Medicine as an associate professor of cellular and molecular physiology in 2005 and joined UMass Chan as a full professor with tenure in 2008.

As an NIH-funded investigator since 2001, his research studies the molecular link between obesity, inflammation and Type 2 diabetes, publishing over 180 peer-reviewed articles. He is also an adjunct investigator with the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School, adjunct professor at Seoul National University and Chungnam National University College of Medicine in South Korea, external advisor to the University of Hawaii Diabetes Center and Johns Hopkins University Diabetes Research Center, chair of the Lipids Basic Science Committee for the American Heart Association, serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board at The University of Hong Kong and on the Scientific Advisory Board for Imagine Pharmaceuticals, and is a strategic scientific advisor for Elevian Inc. He has mentored more than 100 doctoral students, undergraduate interns, research/clinical fellows and junior faculty, many of whom are now established investigators.

Presented by the Center for Research on Families, the Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series brings internationally recognized speakers with expertise in family research to campus each year. The lecture series began in 1999 through an endowment established in memory of Tay Gavin Erickson. The Center for Research on Families is supported by the Provost’s Office, the Edna Skinner Fund, Dorothy and Joseph Gavin Jr., and many other donors.

To register for the event, please visit https://bit.ly/JasonKimTGE and for more information contact crf@umass.edu.