2025 PRESENTER PROFILES
Metabolic Mediators of Metabolic Wasting
Friday, June 20, at 3:45 p.m. CT
Room W181 A-C • McCormick Place Convention Center
Skeletal Muscle Dysfunction in Metabolic Disease
Rita T. Brookheart, PhD
Assistant Professor,
Washington University School of Medicine
What is your presentation about?
Muscle metabolic dysregulation manifests as exercise intolerance and systemic insulin resistance that can lead to metabolic disease states. This presentation specifically focuses on regulators that contribute to impaired mitochondrial oxidative metabolism and accumulation of toxic lipid species. The overarching goal of this work is to identify effective therapeutic approaches for treating skeletal muscle metabolic dysfunction, and thus impeding metabolic disease progression.
How do you hope your presentation will impact diabetes research or care?
My goal is to share essential pre-clinical insight into the mechanisms by which skeletal muscle dysregulation occurs, with the goal of identifying molecular pathways that can be therapeutically targeted to alleviate metabolic dysfunction and improve patient quality of life.
How did you become involved with this area of diabetes research or care?
I have worked in diabetes-related research for decades at the basic research level. Most recently, through clinical collaborations, my work focuses on impacting diabetes research at the translational and clinical level by using basic research approaches to identify and develop effective therapeutics.
