FAMED SWEDISH SCIENTIST JOINS METHODIST TEAM TO DISCOVER NEW APPROACHES TO FIGHT DISEASE By Patti Muck Like generals mapping a battle strategy, Drs. Jan-Åke Gustafsson, Willa Hsueh and John Baxter talk about the next line of attack against the obesity epidemic. “Sixty percent of the U.S. population is overweight, and 30 percent is obese,” Hsueh reminds her colleagues as they discuss the war against diabetes, heart disease and other leading killers. “Drugs for these are desperately needed.” “There’s only one way to move data from the laboratory bench to the bed of the ailing patient, and that is patenting and commercialization — making companies,” Gustafsson points out. As Baxter and Hsueh talk in the conference room of their laboratory at The Methodist Hospital — joined by Gustafsson via telephone from Sweden — their animated conversation moves from one topic to the next, but the focus remains clear: how to translate scientific knowledge into drugs that can help sick people. “We go from atomic resolution — understanding how the drugs work — to biochemical and molecular biology testing to animal testing, and we’re hoping now to expand our program so that we can develop compounds that will have impact,” Baxter explains. Just six months since his arrival in Houston from his native Sweden, Gustafsson already has several research and development strategies under way with Hsueh and Baxter. He leads the developing Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling, an integrated joint center between the University of Houston and The Methodist Hospital Research Institute. The center is partially funded by a $5.5 million grant from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. An expert in nuclear receptors, Gustafsson works closely with Baxter, who heads the Research Institute’s genomic medicine core, and Hsueh, who directs diabetes and metabolism research. This high-powered partnership and crosslaboratory collaboration holds the potential to discover new ways to control nuclear receptors, the docking stations in our cells’ nuclei that regulate cell behavior and control the body’s metabolic and disease processes. As the Research Institute continues adding leading medical experts to its impressive roster, director Dr. Michael W. Lieberman, looks at this latest hire — Gustafsson holds a joint appointment in the Research Institute — as “a very proud hour.” Dr. Jan-Åke Gustafsson
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METHODISTHEALTH.COM
Drs. Michael W. Lieberman, Jan-Åke Gustafsson, John Baxter and Willa Hsueh
