When helium was young, Luke Engelking’s parent asked him what helium wanted to beryllium erstwhile helium grew up. His answer? “’A huffy scientist,’” helium said.
Engelking surely was exposed to the thought of a vocation successful subject and medicine early, arsenic his parent pursued a 2nd vocation arsenic a physician’s adjunct during his precocious schoolhouse years. “Unfortunately, she had a fig of uncommon autoimmune diseases and was often successful and retired of doctors’ offices,” Engelking said. “From past on, I ever knew I wanted to spell to med school. However, I wasn’t ever definite that I wanted a Ph.D.”
Luke Engelking
Engelking ended up doing both. He went to aesculapian schoolhouse astatine the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, wherever helium got his M.D.–Ph.D. successful the laboratory of Nobel laureates Michael Brown and Joe Goldstein, champion known for their find of the low-density lipoprotein receptor and its regularisation of cholesterin metabolism. He enjoyed moving with Brown and Goldstein.
“It was a precise productive time,” Engelking said. “I truly didn’t admit moving nether their aegis erstwhile I was doing it. … Once you’re retired connected your own, everything is much of a struggle.”
Engelking has embraced that struggle. After a residency astatine Massachusetts General Hospital and a objective and probe fellowship backmost astatine UT Southwestern, helium not lone began seeing patients arsenic an attending doc but besides opened his ain probe laboratory arsenic an adjunct prof successful the departments of interior medicine and molecular genetics, studying the relation of sterol receptor element-binding proteins successful colon crab maturation and progression.
Now an subordinate professor, Engelking balances his clip betwixt seeing patients and conducting research. In addition, helium is moving to found a objective probe programme successful colon crab genetics truthful information connected mutations of enrolled patients tin beryllium made publically disposable to researchers astatine UT Southwestern and astir the world.
“It’s my anticipation that we’ll beryllium capable to synergize the objective enactment with the enactment going connected successful the lab,” helium said. “It’s a situation to effort to get each of this enactment to align — I anticipation I’m making progress, but we’re not rather determination yet.”
Identifying markers of crab compartment proliferation successful the intestine
As a physician, Luke Engelking practices big gastroenterology, focusing connected patients with inherited mutations that pb to colorectal cancers arsenic successful Lynch and familial adenomatous polyposis, oregon FAP, syndromes.
In the Engelking lab, probe focuses connected the roles of lipids successful intestinal epithelial compartment growth. The laboratory uses Cre-lox and CRISPR tools to change cistron expression, RNA-seq and lipidomics to illustration compartment markers, and intestinal organoids from some humans and mice arsenic exemplary systems.
The researchers anticipation that discovering caller mechanisms by which sterol receptor element-binding proteins, oregon SREBPs, modulate tumor compartment maturation and proliferation volition contiguous caller cause targets for the attraction of colon cancer. Recently, the laboratory demonstrated that selective nonaccomplishment of SREBP-2, which blocks cholesterin synthesis, leads to overgrowth and accrued proliferation of intestinal progenitor cells.
“What I truly anticipation to bash is determination toward patient-oriented studies,” Engelking said. “Perhaps we’ll find patients with FAP phenotypes but chartless familial markers. There are immoderate fig of familial unknowns that interaction underlying crab biology.”
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