Congratulations to Laurent Perrin for his successful thesis defence.
On Monday, December 11th 2017, Laurent Perrin, a student in the lab of Dr. Charna Dibner successfully defended his thesis entitled “Circadian Regulation of Human Skeletal Muscle Function in Physiology and Insulin Resistance”.
Laurent joined the Dibner lab as a Ph.D. student in September 2013. During his studies he analyzed human muscle cells, publishing as first author a study in Molecular Metabolism showing that these cells possess their own circadian oscillators which control the normal or basal secretion of immune modulators called myokines, including IL-6, according to a day/night schedule. These internal time-keepers, operative in human skeletal muscle, control extensively the gene expression, as demonstrated by Laurent and colleagues in his additional first-author publication, which is at present in revision in eLife. Laurent additionally helped characterize the diurnal changes in the lipid profile of muscle cells, affording him second authorship in a report published in PNAS, which showed daily oscillations in several lipid species including glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids, and sphingolipids in human skeletal muscle in vivo and in vitro. Moreover, Laurent published a first-author video-protocol in JoVE, outlining how to monitor daily changes in clock proteins and hormone secretion in human primary cell cultures. Overall Laurent’s work has highlighted an essential role for human skeletal muscle clock proteins in regulating lipid metabolism independent of external stimuli, such as physical activity or food intake. Additionally, since muscle inflammation and lipid metabolism plays an important role in the pathophysiology of diabetes, Laurent’s work has important implications on how deregulation of the muscle’s internal clock may contribute to this disease.
Well done, Laurent! Wishing him all the best in his bright future.
Posted by: P. Nunes-Hasler
20 Dec 2017