Fall 2014
Colloquia are held on Fridays at 11:30 a.m. in Cullimore Lecture Hall II, unless noted otherwise. Refreshments are served at 11:30 am. For questions about the seminar schedule, please contact Yassine Boubendir.
Date: October 24, 2014
Speaker: Arthur Sherman
National Institutes of Health
Title: "Modeling the Causes and Cures of Diabetes"
Abstract:
Insulin is the primary hormone responsible for controlling glucose usage and storage. Obesity generally causes dysregulation of this system by making tissues resistant to the actions of insulin. If the insulin-secreting beta cells of the pancreas cannot compensate by increasing their output of insulin, type 2 diabetes results. This is the widely accepted "standard model" of diabetes. However, the long pre-diabetes phase, in which glucose is normal but insulin is elevated, has led some to propose an alternative: excessive insulin secretion is the primary defect and results in insulin resistance and beta-cell failure. We will consider mathematical models for both the standard and alternative models.