Acute and Chronic Effects of Adipose Tissue Growth on Cellular and Metabolic Processes

社会对肥胖问题十分关注。这种关注是深远的，从我们对身体脂肪的担忧延伸到食品和农业。例如，在农业方面，有一个重点是乳制品和牲畜中脂肪的数量和类型。作为一个群体或个人，我们不想太胖或太瘦。我们还专注于我们有多少脂肪，以及我们将其储存在哪里，无论是在我们的胃周围，还是在我们的臀部和大腿周围。我们知道，并不是所有的脂肪都是平等的，它的行为因其储存地点的不同而不同。尽管作为一个社会，我们全神贯注于脂肪，但我们对脂肪细胞本身和脂肪细胞所处的环境知之甚少。这项拟议的研究计划试图了解脂肪细胞是如何被编程来储存它们所做的脂肪量的，以及脂肪细胞编程如何影响其周围的组织环境和生物系统。为了回答我们的问题，我们首先想要确定早期对脂肪细胞的编程是否会影响1)它在晚年的行为，2)它周围的环境，以及3)我们的身体如何利用糖、脂肪和能量。我们还想知道早期对脂肪细胞编程的影响在男性和女性中是否有所不同。如果我们能理解脂肪细胞的行为方式，我们就可以利用这些信息来针对脂肪细胞行为的变化。拟议的研究项目的发现将有助于改变我们对脂肪细胞的看法及其对生物系统的影响。这些信息可能会通过影响健康、农业和食品科学行业而使我们的社会受益。

Society has a preoccupation with fat. This preoccupation is far-reaching and extends from our concern with body fat to food and agriculture. For example in agriculture, there is a focus is on the amount and type of fat in dairy products and livestock. As a population or individual, we do not want to be too fat or too skinny. We are also fixated on how much fat we have and where we store it, whether it is around our stomachs or around our hips and thighs. We know that not all fat is equal and that it behaves differently based on where it is stored. Though we are preoccupied with fat as a society, we don't know much about the fat cell itself and the environment in which the fat cell lives. The proposed program of research seeks to understand how fat cells are programmed to store the amount of fat that they do and how fat cell programming affects its surrounding tissue environment and biological systems. To answer our questions we first want to determine if early-life programming of the fat cell effects 1) its behaviour later in life, 2) its surround environment, and 3) how our bodies use sugar, fat and energy. We also want to know if the effects of early-life programming of fat cells are different in men and women. If we can understand why a fat cell behaves the way it does we can use that information to target changes in fat cell behaviour. The findings from the proposed research program will contribute towards changing how we think about the fat cell and its impact on biological systems. This information would potentially benefit our society through impacting health, agriculture, and food science industries.