Doktorander/Utbildningsplatser

Doktorander/Utbildningsplatser
med placering vid Sahlgrenska akademin

Sista ansökningsdag: 2010-04-20

Sahlgrenska akademin utlyser doktorandplatser med placering vid institutionen för medicin.

Doktorandplatserna avser två års utbildningsbidrag och två års doktorandanställning, alternativt fyra års doktorandanställning, och beräknas leda fram till doktorsexamen.

För mer information och ansökningsblankett se:
http://www.sahlgrenska.gu.se/doktorandportalen/Doktor_Fran_start_till_mal/doktorandplatser


WISP-2 - a novel adipokine related to obesity and insulin resistance

Application deadline: 2010-04-20

Description of the research project
Type 2 diabetes is increasing world-wide at an epidemic rate and is expected to reach 350 million inflicted individuals by 2025 as compared to ~200 million today.Since the health costs in most developed countries for this disease are already 6-15 %, this epidemic will impose a major burden on society.

Our research is mainly focused on the adipose tissue and its importance for the development of type 2 diabetes and its complications.In recent years our main focus has been mechanisms related to adipocyte differentiation and the interplay with the Wnt-signaling pathway.This has led to a number of interesting findings associating the Wnt-signalling inducible protein WISP-2 to several risk factors for type 2 diabetes, inflammation and cardiovascular disease.

Our aim is to continue to study WISP-2 and its relation to type 2 diabetes and other inflammatory diseases.To do so we have generated two mouse models, one conditional WISP-2 global knock-out model and one model overexpressing WISP-2 selectively in the adipose tissue driven by the aP2 promoter.At the moment we are breading our founder aP2-WISP-2 mice on a Bl6 background and the aim is to start characterizing these mice in mid 2009.The PhD student will, in collaboration with Post docs already involved in the project, focus on the following;

.Phenotype characterization of transgenic mice overexpressing WISP-2 in the adipose tissue
.Ex vivo characterization of the adipose tissue from transgenic mice overexpressing WISP-2 in the adipose tissue
.In vitro characterization of pre-adipocytes from transgenic mice overexpressing WISP-2 in the adipose tissue