Gabrielada Silva Xavier

Biography

Dr Da Silva Xavier completed her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Bristol in 2001 where she worked on how glucose regulates insulin release and gene expression in the pancreatic beta-cell through its effects on the fuel sensor AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). In 2005, after two post-doctoral positions where she continued to work on fuel sensing kinases that regulate pancreatic beta-cell function and then on the role of a glucose-sensitive transcription factor, Carbohydrate Responsive Element Binding Protein (ChREBP) in the same cell type, she received a Fellowship from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to elucidate how the fuel sensor PAS-domain protein kinase (PASK) may be involved in glucose sensing in the beta-cell. In the same year she received an Albert Renold Travelling Fellowship from the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes to study how PASK may be involved in pancreatic endocrine cell development with Raphael Scharfmann (Inserm, Paris). She moved to Imperial College in 2006 where she continued to study the role of PASK in pancreatic endocrine cell function and develoment, and was involved in collaborative efforts to elucidate how the Type 2 Diabetes genes identified by Genome Wide Association Studies, such as TCF7L2, SLC30A8, WFS1, and HHEX, may affect beta-cell function and development. Of these genes, TCF7L2 and HHEX may be important for pancreatic development and adult beta-cell functon and survival

Research Interest

Biochemistry