China wants to move forward in clinical health research

Chinese scientist Rui-Ping Xiao returns to her home country after 20 years in the United States to help break new ground in translational medicine.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – Chinese physician and scientist Rui-Ping Xiao, a naturalized American citizen, has spent more than 20 years in the United States, where she earned her doctorate and completed a post-doctoral program before becoming a senior researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Baltimore, MD.

In 2005, she was invited to return to China to establish Peking University (PKU)’s Institute of Molecular Medicine, the first autonomous research institute at that institution, ranked China’s best university according to the Times Higher Education (THE).

With initial financing of 80 million yuan (approximately US$13 million) and the support of 985 Chinese research programs, the goal of the interdisciplinary research center in China is to promote translational medicine, which generates basic knowledge in the laboratory and facilitates its application in practical medicine.

Under the direction of Xiao, the basic and translational research institute focuses on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and today brings together more than 200 people, including researchers and graduate students of various nationalities, spread among 12 laboratories, seven technology support units and one primate research center.

According to Xiao, the institute seeks not only to contribute to training the next generation of leading researchers in translational medicine in China but also to make the institute into a world-class molecular research center, such as those in the United States and Europe.

“China has made a lot of progress in science and technology, and investments in research in several areas have rapidly increased over the last ten years,” said Xiao. “However, we’re still only just beginning to develop the field of applied clinical health research,” the researcher told a group of Brazilian journalists after her lecture at the Brazil-China Symposium for Scientific Collaboration – FAPESP Week Beijing, in China.

Sponsored by FAPESP and PKU, the event on April 16-18, 2014 brought researchers from both countries together to discuss studies in the fields of materials science, environmental science, renewable energy, agriculture, life sciences, medicine and health to promote scientific collaboration.

“Over the last decade, I have been able to witness the rapid advancement of science and technology in China in general and of biomedical research in particular,” Xiao said.

“I returned to China because it is my country and I feel that I have a duty and obligation to contribute to developing clinical research here and training a generation of young researchers,” she said.

According to the researcher, the institute that she directs has contributed to the emergence of several similar research institutions in China in recent years.

One of the reasons for accepting the invitation to direct the Molecular Medicine Institute at PKU, she said, was the fact that it is the best university in China and has an infrastructure that allows the development of cutting-edge clinical research.

The Chinese university has nine affiliated hospitals and 12 technical and teaching hospitals associated with it.

“We have excellent facilities, partnerships with pharmaceutical industries and an international standard of clinical and translational research,” said Xiao. “This makes me confident that we can do something special in terms of clinical and translational research,” she added.

Metabolic syndrome

Xiao’s research at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at PKU is designed to study and develop new approaches for the treatment of metabolic syndrome, a group of metabolic diseases that includes central obesity (localized above the waist), dyslipidemia, hyperglycemia and hypertension.

Currently considered to be one of the most serious threats to human health, metabolic syndrome results in twice the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and five times the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, Xiao explained.

“Insulin resistance is a fundamental pathogenic factor shared by several metabolic disorders, including obesity and type 2 diabetes,” the researcher said.

Recently, Xiao’s group discovered that MG53 – a protein specifically expressed in cardiac and skeletal muscles – mediates the degradation of the insulin receptor and the insulin receptor substrate in mice. When expressed at elevated levels, the protein causes metabolic syndrome, resulting in insulin resistance, obesity, hypertension and dyslipidemia.

The researchers found that transgenic overexpression of MG53 in mice led to obesity, triggered insulin resistance, and caused hypertension, hypertrophy and ventricular dilation in their hearts.

“Our findings allowed us to define MG53 as a promising therapeutic target for treating metabolic disorders and associated cardiovascular complications,” Xiao said.

The article “Central role of E3 ubiquitin ligase MG53 in insulin resistance and metabolic disorders” (doi: 10.1038/nature11834), by Xiao and her colleagues and published in the journal Nature, is available at www.nature.com/nature/journal/v494/n7437/full/nature11834.html.