Disease focus

Growing Public Health concerns

Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease

Obesity is one of the worlds most pressing public health problems, and a strong risk factor associated with the onset of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Not simply an imbalance in calorie uptake to energy expenditure, obesity manifests and maintains itself via various pathophysiological mechanisms. These include a plethora of poorly understood cell signalling - receptor dysfunctions. Unravelling the mystery of these impaired signalling circuitries offers insight into the structure of the pathology associated with obesity, its persistence and associated disease progression. Such data provide the focal points for potential future medical intervention and control of this widespread and costly public health issue.
With relentless progression, type II diabetes is about to hit global healthcare in pandemic proportions. With such serious implications arising from the shear number of projected cases, on Dec 20^th 2006, the UN passed the landmark Resolution to list this disease as ‘a chronic, debilitating and costly disease associated with major complications that pose severe risks for families, countries and the entire world’.
Elevated risk of diabetes type 2 and cardiovascular disease goes hand in hand with obesity. The relevant correlations between these pathologies provide entry points for diagnostic, prognostic, therapeutic, and molecular pathway elucidation.

Examples of clinical & scientific interest: