Localisation of human hypothalamic obesity genes in the brain. (V1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigating the expression and localisation of obesity associated genes in the human brain.
IRAS ID
194289
Contact name
I S Farooqi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Cambridge
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 8 months, 0 days
Research summary
Obesity is associated with multiple complications including high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, and thus represents a major public health concern. In order to develop evidence-based pharmacological therapies, it is pivotal that we better understand the molecular and neural pathways involved in the regulation of body weight and how these pathways are disrupted in patients with severe obesity. To this end, we propose to investigate the localisation of human obesity genes in the post-mortem human hypothalamus.
We and others have identified several genes that when disrupted cause severe early onset obesity. Using existing, available tissue samples collected by the Cambridge Brain Bank (CBB) at Cambridge University Hospitals, we plan to apply a range of laboratory-based techniques to visualise and quantitate the expression pattern of these genes in the human hypothalamus.REC name
North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NW/0192
Date of REC Opinion
8 Mar 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion