Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry, Division Chief, Diabetes Center Director, Chair Department of Medicine

Professor Del Abel focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for cardiac dysfunction in obesity, type 2 diabetes and type 1 diabetes, and in elucidating the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in skeletal muscle, adipose tissue and platelets in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance, obesity and its cardiovascular complications. The contributions have elucidated the contribution of oxidative stress in impairing mitochondrial bioenergetics in obesity and diabetes, the pleiotropic effects of insulin and growth factor signaling in cardiac hypertrophy, autophagy, mitochondrial dynamics and mitochondrial bioenergetics. The team elucidated the contribution of hyperinsulinemia to cardiac pathology in diabetes and obesity, mechanisms linking lipotoxicity and mitochondrial dynamics and mechanisms linking altered myocardial glucose metabolism with heart failure.