Delineating insulin-action pathways

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The hormone insulin is probably most associated with its role in whole body glucose homeostasis with insulin binding receptors on fat and muscle cells playing a central role in clearing post-prandial plasma glucose. Insulin is also an important growth factor exerting powerful mitogenic effects important during many types of differentiation. Very little is known about how insulin elicits these two separate physiological responses and in particular where the signaling pathways that regulate them diverge. The aim of this studentship is to determine which insulin receptors regulate different effects of insulin. This will be achieved by using genome editing to create cell lines that have bespoke receptor profiles and also by using structural biology knowledge of how insulin binds its different receptors.