Dr. rer. nat. Sebastian Brachs

05/2013 Postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition, Charité Berlin

05/2012 - 02/2013 Postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Molecular Immunology, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg

06/2007 - 04/2012 Ph.D., Immunology, as member of FOR832 and associated member of graduate school 592 in the Department of Molecular Immunology, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg

10/2001 – 02/2007 Studies of biology (diploma), Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg

TOPICS: Phenotyping of metabolic disease models

Overweight and obesity as well as associated diseases like non-alcoholic fatty liver, insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes now reached epidemic dimensions, with even increasing rates in the future. Studying different aspects of metabolic associated diseases we established in our lab the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp technique, the gold standard for assessing insulin action.

Measuring the infused tracer substances, we can analyze whole-body glucose uptake and organ-specific glucose rates (e.g. in liver, muscle, adipose tissue or heart). Besides metabolic characterizations of genetic mouse models we are also able to use this technique to investigate the action of pharmacological substances as new insulins or inhibitors in vivo.

Additionally, we have numerous standard techniques available for further metabolic phenotyping of genetic mouse models (e.g. ipG/ITT, analysis of body composition by NMR, ex vivo glucose uptake of isolated skeletal muscle, lipid uptake and clearance, analysis of energy expenditure, implantable telemetry).

The purpose of our work is on one hand to decipher cellular and molecular mechanisms as well as important genetic and environmental factors (e.g. nutrition) in the onset of diabetes type-2. On the other hand we aim to develop and analyze strategies for therapies of metabolic disorders such as obesity, fatty liver disease, insulin resistance and diabetes type-2.
In case of interesting questions or projects related to metabolic phenotyping of a genetic mouse models our lab is open for collaborations.

Potential requests should be addressed to Joachim.Spranger@charite.de or Sebastian.Brachs@charite.de.