Michael Cowley

Last updated

Michael Cowley is an Australian physiologist. He is best known for his mapping of the neural circuits involved in metabolism and obesity and diabetes treatment. He is a professor in the Department of Physiology at Monash University [1] in the Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences. [2] He is also a director of the Australian diabetes drug development company, Verva Inc, and director of the Monash Obesity & Diabetes Institute] (modi). [3]

Contents

Cowley is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a Veski Innovation Fellow and, in 2009, was awarded The Australian Science Minister's Prize for Australian Life Scientist of the Year. [4] In 2014 Cowley was the recipient of the inaugural Jacques Miller Medal for Experimental BioMedicine from the Australian Academy of Science. [5]

Cowley's work has mapped the neural circuits in the brain that sense nutrients and fat to control appetite and body weight. He has published more than 75 papers and chapters, is the inventor of 85 patents, and the co-founder of Orexigen Therapeutics, a publicly listed (NASDAQ: OREX) San Diego biotech company, where he served as the chief scientific officer until December 2008, when he returned to Monash University.[ citation needed ]

Cowley has a significant focus on public outreach, the promotion of science in schools, and better metabolic health.[ citation needed ]

Education

Cowley has a Bachelor of Science from both the University of Melbourne and Monash University. He obtained his PhD at Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research at Monash Medical Centre, before obtaining a post-doctoral fellowship at The Vollum Institute in Oregon.[ citation needed ]

Career

Cowley began his research career at Monash University and at the Prince Henry Institute of Medical Research. He then went to the US, where he was assistant professor at Oregon Health and Science University. He also worked at the biopharmaceutical company Neurocrine Biosciences in California. He later founded his own company, Orexigen Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: OREX), [6] which he took public in April 2007, raising US$255M to fund the drug development program. He is the inventor of 10 families of patent applications, has published more than 75 papers, with 85 patents relating to obesity. [7]

In 2014 Cowley was the recipient of the inaugural Jacques Miller Medal for Experimental BioMedicine from the Australian Academy of Science. [5]

In 2009 he was awarded the (Australian) Science Minister's Prize for Life Scientist of the Year [8] and a Pfizer Australia Senior Research Fellowship.

Cowley was the inventor of several drugs, including Contrave®, which the FDA approved in 2014. [9] Previous positions held by Cowley include core director, and associate scientist at Oregon Health & Sciences University.[ citation needed ]

Memberships and affiliations

Cowley is a member of the scientific advisory board of The Centre for Obesity Research and Education (CORE), The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, and Gubra ApS, Denmark. He is also a non-executive director of Verva Pharmaceuticals, Ltd., a Victorian-based clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies to treat metabolic diseases.[ citation needed ]

Professor Cowley is member of the Society for Neuroscience and The Endocrine Society. He is a senior editor for Neuroendocrinology, and was a member of the editorial board of Endocrinology and The American Journal of Physiology.[ citation needed ]

Qualifications

Career highlights, awards, fellowships and grants

Cowley has secured funding support in excess of $18m.[ citation needed ]

Research highlights

Cowley's greatest research achievements have been to describe the fundamental physiological mechanisms of homeostasis of weight, temperature, blood pressure and heart rate. His work has shown new light on how these basic processes are physiologically regulated, and some of the causes of diseases and disorders of these processes. He has described the neural mechanisms and circuits that decode the body signals of weight (fat) and glucose stores, which has led to new treatments for both obesity and diabetes.[ citation needed ]

Cowley has invented and developed novel drugs to redress aberrant weight control and food cravings, and one of these drugs, Contrave, was approved by the FDA in 2014. [9] Cowley established and led a multinational drug target discovery program with a US University and with a global pharmaceutical company, spanning five years.[ citation needed ]

Other achievements include:[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

Insulin resistance (IR) is a pathological condition in which cells in insulin-sensitive tissues in the body fail to respond normally to the hormone insulin or downregulate insulin receptors in response to hyperinsulinemia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leptin</span> Hormone that inhibits hunger

Leptin, also known as obese protein, is a protein hormone predominantly made by adipocytes. Its primary role is likely to regulate long-term energy balance.

The Pennington Biomedical Research Center is a health science-focused research center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is part of the Louisiana State University System and conducts clinical, basic, and population science research. It is the largest academically-based nutrition research center in the world, with the greatest number of obesity researchers on faculty. The center's over 500 employees occupy several buildings on the 222-acre (0.90 km2) campus. The center was designed by the Baton Rouge architect John Desmond.

Metabolic imprinting refers to the long-term physiological and metabolic effects that an offspring's prenatal and postnatal environments have on them. Perinatal nutrition has been identified as a significant factor in determining an offspring's likelihood of it being predisposed to developing cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes amongst other conditions.

The Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, commonly known as the Baker Institute, is an Australian independent medical research institute headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. Established in 1926, the institute is one of Australia's oldest medical research organisations with a historical focus on cardiovascular disease. In 2008, it became the country's first medical research institute to target diabetes, heart disease, obesity and their complications at the basic, clinical and population health levels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naltrexone/bupropion</span> Medication for treatment of obesity

Naltrexone/bupropion, sold under the brand name Contrave among others, is a fixed-dose combination medication for the management of chronic obesity in adults in combination with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity. It contains naltrexone, an opioid antagonist, and bupropion, an aminoketone atypical antidepressant. It is taken by mouth. Both medications have individually shown some evidence of effectiveness in weight loss, and the combination has been shown to have some synergistic effects on weight.

Douglas L. Coleman was a scientist and professor emeritus at the Jackson Laboratory, in Bar Harbor, Maine. His work predicted that there exists a hormone that can cause mice to feel full, and that a mutation in the gene encoding this hormone can lead to obesity. The gene and corresponding hormone were discovered about 20 years later by Jeffrey M. Friedman, Rudolph Leibel, and their research teams at Rockefeller University, which Friedman named leptin.

Sleep is important in regulating metabolism. Mammalian sleep can be sub-divided into two distinct phases - REM and non-REM (NREM) sleep. In humans and cats, NREM sleep has four stages, where the third and fourth stages are considered slow-wave sleep (SWS). SWS is considered deep sleep, when metabolism is least active.

Michael Warren Schwartz is Robert H. Williams Endowed Chair, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition at the University of Washington and Director of the UW Medicine Diabetes and Obesity Center of Excellence. He is the Director of the NIH-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) at the University of Washington. His research investigates brain mechanisms governing energy balance and glucose metabolism and how obesity and diabetes result from impairment of these brain systems. He has published more than 200 articles and book chapters related to these topics and his research has been continuously funded by the NIH since joining the faculty of UW 18 years ago. Dr. Schwartz is a member of the Association of American Physicians, the Western Association of Physicians, and the American Society for Clinical Investigation, is the recipient of the 2007 Williams-Rachmiel Levine Award for Outstanding Mentorship from the Western Society for Clinical Investigation, the 2006 Naomi Berrie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Diabetes Research from Columbia University, and was the 2012 Solomon A. Berson Lecturer for the American Physiological Society, among other awards. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, American Journal of Physiology, Endocrine Reviews, Molecular Metabolism and Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jose F. Caro</span> American physician

José F. Caro is an American physician, scientist, and educator most notable for his research in obesity and diabetes. The Institute for Scientific Information listed him the third most cited investigator in the world in the field of obesity research during the 1991-2000 period for his work on Leptin. Caro is an artist and a signature member of the Pastel Society of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josephine Forbes</span> Australian scientist

Josephine Forbes is an Australian scientist specialising in the study of glycation and diabetes. She has been studying diabetes since 1999 and has worked at Royal Children's Hospital, University of Melbourne and Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne Australia. Since 2012 she has led the Glycation and Diabetes team at Mater Research which is a world-class medical research institute based at South Brisbane, and part of the Mater Group. Josephine is program leader for Mater's Chronic Disease Biology and Care theme, building greater understanding of the biological basis of a broad range of chronic diseases, and developing preventative strategies and innovative treatments to improve patient outcomes. Josephine and her team focus on how advanced glycation contributes to the pathogenesis of diabetes and its complications such as kidney disease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthias Tschöp</span> German neuroendocrinologist (born 1967)

Matthias H. Tschöp is a German physician and scientist. He is the chief executive officer and scientific director of Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health. He is also Alexander von Humboldt Professor and chair of metabolic diseases at Technical University of Munich and serves as an adjunct professor at Yale University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen R. Bloom</span> British academic

Sir Stephen Robert Bloom FRS is a British Professor of Medicine at Imperial College London where he leads the Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christos Socrates Mantzoros</span> Greek American physician and scientist

Christos Socrates Mantzoros is a Greek-born American physician-scientist, practicing internist-endocrinologist, teacher and researcher. He is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an adjunct professor at Boston University School of Medicine. He currently serves as the chief of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the VA Boston Healthcare System, where he created de novo a leading academic division true to its tripartite mission and as the founding director of human nutrition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Harvard Medical School. Finally, he holds the editor-in-chief position of the journal Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental.

Rexford Sefah Ahima is a professor of medicine, Public Health and Nursing; Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Diabetes at the Johns Hopkins Medical School; and the Director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Ahima's research focuses on central and peripheral actions of adipocyte hormones in energy homeostasis, and glucose and lipid metabolism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachelle Buchbinder</span> Australian rheumatologist and medical researcher

Rachelle Buchbinder is an Australian rheumatologist and clinical epidemiologist. Her clinical practice is in conjunction with research involving multidisciplinary projects relating to arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions. She promotes improvement of communication with patients and health literacy in the community.

Mirela Delibegovic, is a Bosnian-British pharmacologist/biochemist who is Dean for Industrial Engagement in Research & Knowledge Transfer and Director of Aberdeen Cardiovascular and Diabetes Centre. She is also Regius Professor of Physiology at the University of Aberdeen. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Delibegovic used artificial intelligence to develop technologies that would allow mass-screening for coronavirus disease 2019.

Louis Anthony Tartaglia is an American biochemist, pharmaceutical scientist, and entrepreneur. As a scientist, he is known for first identifying and cloning the leptin receptor in 1995, a discovery that prompted immediate coverage in US national media given its expected clinical significance. He is also known for studying signaling mechanisms from the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptors, and for publishing studies in the fields of obesity and diabetes which are often discussed in subject reviews. After moving from academia to industry in 1990, for over a decade he accompanied the growth of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, reaching top positions within the company. From executive roles he has occupied in venture capital firms, and as a member of several advisory boards, Tartaglia has helped start a number of therapeutics oriented companies that have found their way into the market, among them Agios, Editas, Rhythm, and Zafgen.

Michael Horowitz is an Australian medical researcher and professor of medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Febbraio</span> Researcher

Mark Anthony Febbraio is a physiologist, academic and researcher. He is a professor and head of the Cellular and Molecular Metabolism Laboratory at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) of Monash University and a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

References

  1. ↑ "Breaking the link between fat and diabetes". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . 28 October 2009.
  2. ↑ Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences, www.med.monash.edu.au
  3. ↑ Monash Obesity & Diabetes Institute (modi), www.modi.monash.edu.au
  4. ↑ Australian Life Scientist of the Year, www.theaustralian.com.au
  5. 1 2 Jacques Miller Medal for Experimental BioMedicine, Australian Academy of Science
  6. ↑ Orexigen Therapeutics Inc, www.orexigen.com
  7. ↑ "Life Scientist of the Year announced - awards, diabetes, molecular biology, Neuroscience - Australian Life Scientist". www.lifescientist.com.au. Archived from the original on 31 October 2009.
  8. ↑ "CSIRO scientist wins top award for wifi technology | The Australian". Archived from the original on 8 October 2011.
  9. 1 2 "Contrave Prescribing Information" (PDF). U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
  10. 1 2 3 Science Minister’s Prize for Life Scientist of the Year award citation
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.