Date: Friday 17 March, 1.30pm
Venue: Large Cloud
Speaker: Mónica Imbernón, French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM)
Title: Exploring insulin-independent mechanisms on glycaemic control
The first seminar in the new Metabolism Seminar Series of guest speakers will take place on Friday 17 March at 1.30pm in Large Cloud. We hope to see as many of you there as possible.
Speaker Bio: Monica studied for a degree in Biology (5-year program 2002-2007, specialisation in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology) at University of Santiago de Compostela where she also completed her Masters in Molecular Medicine. She started her PhD in Endocrinology in 2010 at the Centro de Investigaciones Médicas de la Universdad de Santiago de Compostela (CIMUS, Spain) where she joined the Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism with Prof Carlos Diéguez and Rubén Nogueiras. Here she developed skills to investigate the physiological process in central and peripheral tissues for the regulation of energy homeostasis. During her PhD studies she identified how hypothalamic MCH-expressing neurons differentially targeted the liver or adipose tissue to regulate fat metabolism and their involvement in the progression of steatohepatitis, and was awarded the Doctoral Thesis Prize from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2016.
In September 2016 Monica started as a Postdoctoral Fellow supervised by Dr. Vincent Prevot, Head of the “Development & Plasticity Of The Neuroendocrine Brain Lab” at Institute National de la Sante et de la Research Medicale (INSERM), in Lille (France). During this time Monica gained wide expertise in neuroendocrinology, specifically studying how ependymoglial cells called tanycytes, that form the hypothalamic blood-brain barrier (BBB), regulate the access of peripheral metabolic hormones and nutrients into the hypothalamus thus modulating energy homeostasis. Specifically, she discovered the requirement of tanycytes to transport the anti-obesity drug liraglutide (GLP1R-agonist) to the hypothalamus in order to exert its anti-obesity actions. In addition she described that glycaemic changes modulate hypothalamic BBB architecture, controlling the efficiency of GLP1R-agonists entrance to the hypothalamus.
In 2022 Monica was awarded the International Young Investigator Prize from the French Society of Neuroendocrinology.