Research Grand Rounds Presents: Friends among Foes: The Very Long-Chain Saturated Fatty Acids
Sponsor: MHRI and GHUCCTS
Time: 12 - 1:00 PM
Location: Live Stream Only
Speaker(s): Rozenn N Lemaitre, PhD, MPH
Dr. Lemaitre is a Research Professor of Medicine at the Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, University of Washington. With expertise in epidemiology and biochemistry, she has spent decades leading innovative and highly collaborative research, funded by NIH, that intersects nutrition, genetics, and lipidomics with cardiovascular health and diabetes.
Through leadership of several large research consortia and multidisciplinary projects, she has brought together teams of basic, clinical, and population health investigators. Their collective efforts have applied cutting edge methods to study fatty acids and fatty acids derivatives in the context of human health and disease. With her colleagues, she has measured individual sphingolipid species with different saturated fatty acids in several NHLBI-supported cohort studies. This research reveals pronounced differences between sphingomyelins with different saturated fatty acids and the risks of incident heart failure, atrial fibrillation and total mortality, often with parallel findings for circulating ceramides.
Her presentation will focus on evidence that contrasts beneficial effects of circulating very long-chain saturated fatty acids on cardiometabolic health with those of the most prevalent, archetypal “bad guy” fatty acid: palmitic acid; and how these surprising findings opened the way to new understanding of ceramide and sphingomyelin biology that have direct and translatable implications for cardiometabolic health and disease.
Research Grand Rounds are sponsored by the Georgetown-Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science (GHUCCTS) and MedStar Health Research Institute to bring together our diverse clinical and research communities to share research that spans disciplines and stages of translation to improve individual and community health.
Live Stream Link or more information please contact research@medstar.net or visit GHUCCTS Event Page