Affiliation: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Dr. Clair Crewe received her PhD in 2015 at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Her doctoral work defined the initiating events in the development of cardiac metabolic inflexibility during high fat feeding in mice.  She is currently an Assistant Instructor in Dr. Philipp Scherer’s laboratory at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Dr. Crewe uses genetic mouse models to understand the metabolic consequences of adaptive and mal-adaptive expansion of adipose tissue in obesity. Under the condition of chronic overnutrition the ability of adipose tissue to store excess energy as lipid is essential for the maintenance of whole-body glucose and lipid homeostasis. Thus, unhealthy adipose expansion in obesity has been implicated in multiple obesity-linked conditions including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Crewe’s work seeks to understand and manipulate the crosstalk between energetically stressed adipocytes and other organ systems to improve systemic lipid and glucose metabolism.