Room 209C Wethington Building Academic Appointments: • Clinical Sciences/Clinical Nutrition Education: • B.S., Human Nutrition-Dietetics, Lycee Rabelais, Paris, France Awards: • Ministere de la Recherche et de l’Enseignement Superieur Predoctoral Fellow Specific Interest in Nutrition: Regulation of Wnt and Frizzled signaling in vascular cells by nutrients. Research: Incidences of obesity and diabetes are increasing both in the adult and young populations. In the adults, diabetes and obesity affect dramatically the capacity of vascular cells to respond to injury and develop proper healing processes. Risks of developmental cardiovascular defects are increased in the offspring of obese and/or diabetic pregnant women. Vascular healing recapitulates most of the developmental processes such as cell migration, cell adhesion, cell proliferation and cell death, which are controlled by various morphogens and growth factors including the Wnt family. Dr. Mao’s laboratory is interested, in particular, in the regulation and functions of Wnt13 in endothelial cells as its expression is regulated by nutrients and starvation at the levels of transcription, RNA splicing and translation start sites. Functions of Wnt13 and its putative Frizzled receptors such as Frizzled-7, pertaining to cell migration, cell adhesion and cell death are also studied in various nutritional conditions.
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