Metabolomics expert honored by the Endocrine Society
Christopher B. Newgard, PhD, is an endocrinology veteran and a metabolic expert. For his efforts in investigating mechanisms of metabolic regulation and fueling homeostasis in mammalian systems, the Endocrine Society conferred on him its 2020 Outstanding Innovation Award.
Newgard currently serves as the director of the Sarah Steadman Nutrition and Metabolism Center and director of the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute. In a conversation with Healio, he discussed his passion for his field, “big science” and his love for sailing along the North Carolina coast.
What was the defining moment that led you to your field?
Newgard : When I was an undergraduate at the Duke University marine laboratory, I discovered I was really interested in metabolism. I began to look for further training opportunities post-undergraduate that would include metabolism and came to realize that metabolic disease — obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease — were disease areas where metabolism was very important. Then training that I had with Jens J. Holst, MD, DMSc, Roger Unger, MD, and John Denis McGarry, PhD, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the years after my undergraduate were instrumental in shaping the things I do today.
Have you ever been fortunate enough to witness medical history in the making?
Newgard : When I was working with Jens Holst, it was a time in which he was working out how the hormone GLP1 gets spliced out of the pro-glucagon precursor protein. I was also fortunate to work beside Roger Unger at a time when he was doing really important research to establish some of the fundamental roles of glucagon, so the these were as close as I've gotten to greatness to medical history in my career.
What area of research in endocrinology most interests you right now and why?
Newgard : My lab is divided into two parts: One part works very actively in the area of the biology of pancreatic islets, not just the insulin-producing beta cells, but also the glucagon-producing alpha cells. We study mechanisms by which the release of those hormones is regulated, we also study pathways by which the islet cells can be induced to replicate and pathways that regulate the survival of the pancreatic islet cells. All things related to pancreatic islet biology are a careerlong interest of my lab.
The other half of my lab works on the integration of metabolic control across tissues. This is where we apply the tool of metabolomics and metabolic flux analysis, which the development and application of those tools is the genesis of my being chosen for the innovator award by the Endocrine Society.
What advice would you offer a student in medical school today?
Newgard : It’s important in the early years of training to get some diversity of the training experience that is both in terms of the things that you study at each stop along the way and also in terms of the technologies that you're exposed to. In my own case, my graduate training with Dennis McGarry was very focused on all the tools for studying metabolism, but then my postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF was focused on molecular biology. My work today uses both of those disciplines to address problems of interest.
So diversity — both in the technology and topics that you're studying and also geographical diversity because it's important to learn how cultures differ at our different universities. What's really interesting and exciting is that you can get a whole different set of stimuli in one university setting vs. another. I really encourage students to explore different scientific topic areas, technologies and even geographical locations in their training years before they settle down go on faculty later in their careers.
What do you think will have the greatest influence on your field and the next 10 years?
Newgard : This is a time of enormous datasets and almost enormous information overload, and I think what we're doing in terms of applying “omics” sciences, for example, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, epigenomics, those types of approaches to science, which are big science approaches, are creating data sets that present tremendous challenges in terms of computational analysis. Just getting your hands around the data and finding ways to present it that the human mind can absorb and deal with is a huge challenge. The extent to which those computational approaches can actually be advanced and applied and take advantage of the tremendous amount of molecular profiling data that's out there, that's what the current state of biological research hinges on.
But there's also another issue. We may discover that we can develop or apply computational tools to the enormous data explosion that's occurred in recent years around molecular profiling. In the end, someone has to interpret the data, and there's a real opportunity for people to think about physiology: how different organs interact and how different organisms interact with their environment, the bigger integrated picture of how systems work. There's a really important role for people who came up through physiology to help interpret data sets in the years to come.
The ability to wrestle gigantic data sets to the ground with computational tools and then the ability to interpret complicated data are going to be really impactful.
What are your hobbies or interests outside of medicine?
Newgard : My biggest hobby is boating. I have a 21-foot center console boat, and I really enjoy being on the water. I like fishing, and we have an absolutely beautiful coast here in North Carolina. I don't get there enough, but it's one of my happiest times when I'm out on the ocean on my boat. I don't need to be going very fast. I don't even need to be catching fish. I just I like being on the water. There’s a great sense of freedom and being on the water in your own boat, so I enjoy that very much. by Kate Burba