Calum D Sutherland

Biography

Career: Dr Sutherland has worked in industry with Glaxo Group Research, obtained his PhD under the supervision of Professor Sir Philip Cohen, at the University of Dundee, and studied under Professor Daryl K Granner, at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee. He has obtained personal Fellowships from the American Diabetes Association, the Wellcome Trust and Diabetes UK covering his work from 1994 to 2008. Dr Sutherland is a member of the Diabetes UK Science and Research Advisory Group, Diabetes UK Annual Conference Organising committee, CSO Experimental and Translational Medicine research committee, Diabetes UK Research panel (studentships/fellowships), the Scottish Dementia Research Consortium, the European Translational Medicine Research Council, and the Alzheimer’s Research UK East of Scotland research Network. In 2016 he will Chair the Diabetes UK Annual Professional Conference.

Research Interest

Overview: The Sutherland lab has contributed to the understanding of insulin signalling mechanisms and regulation of gene transcription, most recently in human tissue, with a focus on how it contributes to human health and disease. Major breakthroughs include establishing a major regulatory mechanism of the key protein kinase GSK3, demonstrating that GSK3 inhibition enhances insulin action in the liver and is a potential treatment for diabetes, identifying the signalling pathway by which insulin turns off hepatic glucose production, finding the mechanism by which the protein CRMP2 is modified to promote its accumulation into tangles in Alzheimer’s disease and finding new physiological functions for GSK3 and the CRMP family of proteins. Current Focus: The lab continues to develop technology for the discovery of insulin sensitising drugs and biomarkers of poor insulin response that would help identify people at high risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes. In recent years the lab has characterised molecular connections between Diabetes and Dementia that could explain the increased risk of Dementia in the diabetic population, and is investigating the impact of insulin resistance and obesity on heart disease, cancer, behaviour and the effectiveness of diabetes therapies.