$1.8 million in CIHR grants to support metabolic and obesity research

Researchers from McMaster’s Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research were successful in the 2023 Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) fall project grant competition. Drs. Jonathan Schertzer, Katherine Morrison and Zubin Punthakee will receive $1.8 million in funding over the next five years to further investigate ways to combat metabolic diseases such as diabetes mellitus and obesity.

Postbiotics cooperate to improve metabolic disease

Dr. Jonathan Schertzer, Associate Professor in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and Canada Research Chair in Metabolic Inflammation, and his lab discovered 3 postbiotics , which are non-living components of bacteria, that improve blood glucose levels during diet-induced obesity. Dr. Schertzer and his team aim to understand how these postbiotics can be combined to improve metabolic disease. CIHR granted Schertzer $1,216,350 over 5 years to support this project.

Metabolic adaptation to weight loss in response to a behavioural lifestyle program with or without semaglutide in adolescents with obesity: A randomized controlled trial

Drs. Katherine Morrison, Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and co-director of MODR, and Zubin Punthakee, Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, are co-leading a study that aims to investigate whether energy expenditure, which is the amount of energy our bodies burn, declines after weight loss. This study will compare two interventions: 1. Behavior lifestyle program (BLP) and 2: BLP combined with the medication semaglutide. Energy expenditure will be measured in MODR’s new Energy Lab facility. Other MODR investigators involved in this study are Gregory Steinberg, Marie Pigeyre, Hertzel Gerstein, Gita Wahi and Mike Noseworthy. CIHR granted Morrison and Punthakee $650,250 over 5 years to conduct this research.