Team:Hong Kong HKUST/hp/interview/chan

Introduction

Professor Juliana Chan is a professor of medicine and therapeutics in Chinese University Hong Kong (CUHK). She is also the director of Hong Kong Institute of Diabetes and Obesity, CUHK; co-director of CUHK-Prince of Wales Hospital International Diabetes Federation Centre of Education; and chief executive officer of Asia Diabetes Foundation. With rich knowledge on diabetes, obesity and clinical practice, Professor Chan gave us practical insights of our project in the medical field. Meeting Professor Chan helped us to understand more about the biochemistry of diabetes. Also, she guided us to think more about the applications of our products by giving us information of the current treatment of obesity and diabetes. Towards the end of the interview, we have also talked about the regulations of new treatment in medical fields.

Main Discussion

Professor Chan thought that our project was interesting because she has been keen to solve problems related to obesity and diabetes. She mentioned that obesity is a disease that many people disregard, but that has great potential to cause complications such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. As more studies related to obesity are done, it seems like the cause of obesity is more than unbalanced lifestyle and diet. Professor Chan said that the underlying reason of obesity could be genetics and/or epigenetics.

In case of diabetes, dysfunctional proteins from the deficient genes and high levels of free fatty acid could provide stressful environment for the beta cells of the pancreas that produces insulin. Professor Chan explained that this kind of stress on beta cells can cause insulin resistance and ultimately lead to type II diabetes. We have investigated if our project could alleviate diabetes. Professor Chan mentioned that our project could definitely help to reduce the stress on the beta cells by decreasing the amount of free fatty acid and ultimately alleviating diabetes. She, however, acknowledged that in the long run, our project itself might not be enough to completely cure diabetes. This is because diabetes is a very complex disease with many different types and therefore very hard to cure. Professor Chan said that diabetes is a “vicious cycle” and to break this cycle different approaches such as healthy diet and insulin injection are also required. She mentioned that our project could be one of these approached to break the cycle.

We have also investigated on the side effects that our project might cause. Dr. Chan specifically mentioned Ketoacidosis. Ketoacidosis occurs when high concentrations of ketone bodies are formed due to the increase of fatty acid oxidation. We have explained that our inducible promoter is activated at high level of fatty acid but shuts down before too many fatty acids is oxidized to produce fatty acid deficiency and other side effects such as ketoacidosis. Dr. Chan also worried about the increase of oxidative species caused by the increase of fatty acid oxidation. She said that because fatty acid oxidation requires oxygen, increase of fatty acid oxidation might limit the availability of oxygen for other cells and cause incomplete respiration to ultimately produce reactive oxidative species. She mentioned to reduce this kind of possible side effect, patients that apply our product most do aerobic exercise to ensure enough oxygen is provided to the body.

Moreover, we discussed the regulations on applying new treatment in medical fields. This allowed us to know more about the bio-safety precautions taken in the field. It is known that scientists need to pass 4 phases of clinical research in order to put their products into market. However, scientists are also responsible to revise and present their ideas to the public so that more people can understand and be aware to the research work ongoing.

Conclusion

The interview with Professor Chan helped us to have a practical view of our project. The interview also gave us holistic view on diabetes and foreseeable obstacles we may need to overcome if we want to put our construct into practice.

Interview Video

Pictures