Page 17 - Abacoa Community News - January '22

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The Scripps Research Institute News from page 16 “We are exceptionally grateful for the efforts of Herbert
Wertheim who helped bring this tremendous opportunity
will come on board within the next five years and will to Scripps and the university,” Hosseini added. Wertheim
complement the existing talented pool of scientists there, is a member of the Scripps Research Board of Directors,
possibly expanding efforts in the artificial intelligence a UF alumnus, founding chair of UF’s Herbert Wertheim
domain by hiring faculty focused on areas such as data College of Engineering and a longtime supporter of UF.
science and AI. Other natural areas of collaboration with UF President Kent Fuchs said the stage is set for the
colleagues in other parts of UF Health potentially include new entity to be a significant force for progress and for
cancer, drug discovery, immunology and infectious disease, the door to open to new scientific and tech collaborations
neuroscience (including Alzheimer’s and other aging-related with others, including other State University System
diseases, as well as autism), HIV/AIDS, and structural institutions such as Florida Atlantic and Florida
biology and molecular medicine. International universities.
“I would like to thank our Board member Dr. Herbert “With our deep faculty benches at UF, UF Health
Wertheim on behalf of Scripps Research for making this and Scripps – along with our combined resources and
unique partnership possible for Scripps and the University of impressive research capacity – I fully expect we will see “Just by manipulating this one gene we were able to
Florida by taking this opportunity directly to President Fuchs. absolutely remarkable discoveries in the years to come that reproduce weight-loss benefits of high intensity interval
Without his effort and commitment, this transfer would not will benefit the state, the nation and the world,” Fuchs said. training, including the maintenance during fasting of a
be happening. This is truly an example of the whole being higher metabolic rate, greater loss of fat mass, and greater
greater than the sum of the parts,” said Peter Schultz, Ph.D., Study Reveals Molecular resistance to the loss of muscle mass,” says study senior
president and chief executive officer of Scripps Research, author Kendall Nettles, Ph.D., associate professor in the
based in La Jolla, Calif. “Florida supported us in establishing Pathway By Which Intense Department of Integrative Structural and Computational
a world-class institute, and Scripps Florida together with Biology at Scripps Research in Florida.
UF, as part of the greater Florida research and education Exercise Promotes Weight Loss The Benefits Of Stress
community, will have a tremendous impact on scientific Surveys by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
research and human health.” Boosting the activity of one gene in the muscles of suggest that about 70 percent of Americans qualify as
Scripps Florida researchers are regularly heralded for mice powerfully enhances their ability to lose weight overweight or obese, reflecting one of the most striking
their pioneering discoveries that have led to hundreds of with fasting. and worrisome health trends of modern times. Overweight
patents and numerous spinoff companies. They are behind When you try to lose weight by eating less, your body and obesity are associated with elevated risks of a long
a robust research profile, with nearly $50 million in NIH tends to resist by slowing its metabolism and ramping list of disorders, from diabetes to cardiovascular disease.
funding and over $67 million in total research funding, up the hunger pangs. This is why diets fail so often. Thus, there is a particular urgency to the study of the
which includes industry support. But people who maintain long-term weight loss almost biology of weight gain and weight loss.
As part of the arrangement, a site director and local invariably exercise, and a new study from scientists at In a 2014 study, Scripps Research investigators
leadership council will be appointed for the entity, which Scripps Research reveals key molecular details of this including Nettles detailed how CRCT2 is activated
will be organized and operated independently and report weight loss-enhancing effect. downstream of the surge of the stress hormone
to Nelson. Scripps scientists will join the UF faculty and The researchers, who report their findings in the norepinephrine, which occurs when intense exercise
also will retain an additional Scripps title. Federation of American Societies for Experimental triggers the “fight or flight” stress response. The
“This integration between the University of Florida and Biology (FASEB) Journal, engineered mice to overexpress researchers engineered mice in which they could switch
Scripps Florida will create unprecedented collaboration a gene called CRCT2. This gene is among those activated on CRCT2 activity in muscles at much higher levels
among some of the world’s most brilliant and talented by intense or new exertion, and it is known to account than normal and found that this relatively simple genetic
minds to address the biggest biomedical challenges we for many of the fitness benefits of high-intensity interval juicing of the mice quickly reproduced the strength and
face today,” said Mori Hosseini, UF Board of Trustees workouts. performance benefits of intense exercise, giving them
chair. “Not only will this produce enormous scientific The scientists found that by boosting CRCT2 they bigger muscles and exercise capacity.
and health-related advancements for the entire world, it also could powerfully counter the metabolism-slowing, “It was quite amazing,” Nettles says. “Imagine being
also will lead to tremendous economic development and hunger-boosting effects of fasting in mice, allowing the able to ride a bike at 10 miles an hour for an hour, and
further elevated national and global stature for the state animals to lose more weight compared to mice who lacked then just a week later being able to ride at 20 miles an hour
of Florida. the extra CRCT2 activity. for two hours – that was the degree of the performance
enhancement we saw in these mice.”
In the new study, the researchers examined CRCT2’s
exercise-like impact in the context of dieting. Prior
studies have shown that exercise is very important for
find dating
sustaining weight-loss when dieting. Exercise doesn’t
success just directly burn calories. It also, among other effects,
raises the background calorie-burning rate, countering
the metabolic slowing that normally occurs with lowered
in your city food intake.

The scientists found this same “exercise effect” in
mice whose muscles had overactive CRCT2. Over two
weeks of an alternate-day fasting regimen, the high-
CRCT2 mice lost twice as much weight as normal-CRCT2
mice while maintaining a higher rate of metabolism and
Happy showing less binge eating when food was available.
The high-CRCT2 mice also lost mainly fat, whereas the
NewYear normal mice lost mostly lean mass—which is to say,
mostly muscle.

Apart from illuminating these exercise-activated
2022! pathways, the research also made clear that the stress
hormone norepinephrine has a more complex role than
has traditionally been assumed.
“We’ve thought of the stress hormones norepinephrine
and epinephrine (also known as noradrenaline and
adrenaline) as being released during intense or new
We Connect REAL People in REAL Life. exercise to help break down fat and other molecules in
the short term for use as fuel,” Nettles says. “We haven’t
thought about them as regulators of long-term metabolism
and muscle-building – so that’s a big change.”
Developing a drug, for example a future obesity or
diabetes drug, that boosts CRCT2 as the researchers did
in this study, is somewhat problematic, Nettles says. An
existing drug that has this effect is considered an illicit
performance-enhancer and is not approved for any human
use in the United States because of its adverse side effects,
which include heart palpitations and muscle tremors.
“This research suggests that exercise that releases
these stress hormones, such as with high intensity or
#TellYourFriends switching your routine will improve maintenance of

DATE LOCAL Private & Con dential NOT ONLINE DATING weight loss,” Nettles says.

In addition to Nettles, authors of “Activation of Crtc2/

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and Gordon Hager of the National Cancer Institute; and
Kelly Leary, M.S.

THE Florida Matchmaker Stephen Hurst and Shey-Shing Sheu of Thomas Jefferson
University.