Abeer Mohamed
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Physiology
Obesity and type 2 diabetes both greatly raise the risk of heart and blood vessel disease. In obese people with diabetes, one early warning sign is endothelial dysfunction, in which the cells lining the blood vessels stop working properly.
- Fields
Physiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biochemistry
- Topics
type 2 diabetes
obesity
endothelial dysfunction
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Investigate whether glycosphingolipid-rich adiposomes, vesicles released by fat tissue, disrupt the membranes of blood vessel lining cells and cause endothelial dysfunction in obese adults with type 2 diabetes.
- Test whether exercise training reduces the harmful effects of adiposomes on blood vessel function, building on findings that high shear stress, an exercise mimic, protects endothelial cells.
- Examine how the adiposome/caveolae axis changes after metabolic (bariatric) surgery, and whether these changes are linked to improved vascular function.
More about the research
This project studies how fat tissue sends harmful signals to these lining cells. It also asks whether exercise and weight-loss surgery can reverse that damage.
Why it matters
Obese adults with type 2 diabetes face high risk of cardiovascular disease, which begins with damage to blood vessel linings. This work could identify fat-derived adiposomes and their lipid cargo as new targets for protecting blood vessels. It could also show how drug-free treatments, such as aerobic exercise and bariatric surgery, improve vascular health. The results may help improve care for cardiovascular disease related to diabetes.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Margo Emont
University of Chicago, IL·Physiology·Early-career
Track how human adipocyte subpopulations change during weight loss, using single-nucleus RNA sequencing of fat tissue collected during and after bariatric surgery.
Naomi Hamburg
Boston University, MA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether type 2 diabetes and related cardiometabolic traits are linked to organelle stress (mitochondrial dysfunction and ER stress) in fresh endothelial cells from 450 Framingham Heart Study participants.
Bethany Cummings
University of California-Davis, CA·Physiology
Compare liver and islet responses to injected glucagon in obese mice and after dietary or bariatric-surgery weight loss, to test whether α-cell signaling shifts from the liver to insulin secretion.
The school
University of Illinois Chicago: 42 labs on PI Pages, $532M a year on research, 359 research doctorates a year.
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