New Facility, New Collaborations, New Science

On October 8, more than 900 people, including Florida Governor Charlie Crist, helped Burnham dedicate our new 175,000-square-foot scientific facility at Lake Nona in Orlando, Florida. This is the first facility to open in Lake Nona’s Medical City, which will be a hub for medical research to advance scientific discoveries and breakthrough therapies.

“We have established a foundation by bringing new expertise to the region and forging strong alliances that will enhance and accelerate scientific opportunities,” said John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO, professor and Donald Bren Presidential Chair. “Burnham’s collaborative approach has been very successful. We are transferring that model to the Lake Nona campus in Orlando, where scientists are conducting research in metabolic disorders, heart disease and cancer.”

Burnham’s Lake Nona facility was designed to maximize an array of sophisticated technologies that will help researchers answer some of the most fundamental questions about human biology. The Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics facility at Lake Nona, like its counterpart in La Jolla, will identify small molecule compounds that can help regulate proteins implicated in disease. In addition, the Cardiovascular Pathobiology and Metabolic Signaling and Disease programs will study type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other conditions. This will be supported by the Cardiometabolic Phenotyping Core, which will study cardiovascular complications and metabolic disturbances in mouse models of human diseases.

Metabolomics

Researchers are particularly excited about the new facility’s emerging metabolomics capability. Burnham is collaborating with the Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center (Stedman Center) at Duke University Medical Center to use metabolite profiling to clarify the basic mechanisms of disease, identify biomarkers for diagnosis and monitor treatment. The recent agreement establishes an extension of Duke’s Stedman Center laboratory at Burnham’s Lake Nona campus and combines the Stedman Center’s metabolomics expertise with Burnham’s complementary technologies. But what is metabolomics?

“Metabolomics is the survey of the small molecule metabolites in the body,” says Stedman Center Director Christopher Newgard, Ph.D. “I think a good way to describe it is the chemical fingerprint. What we’re really talking about is the fundamental way that we process genetic information. It starts at the gene, then you make messenger RNA, you make proteins, but the end result of all of that genetic machinery is to affect the chemistry of the body.”

In short, metabolomics will provide a rapid way to analyze chemicals (metabolites) in the body and determine the processes that created those chemicals. Once these compounds have been traced to their genetic source, clinicians will use these metabolite profiles as a powerful diagnostic tool to uncover diseases at their earliest stages and determine the specific nature of the disease. Dan Kelly, M.D., Scientific Director of Burnham at Lake Nona, sums up the importance of this technology: “How do we begin to, identify the individual who’s most at risk for developing diabetes? Can we come up with personalized markers? The Stedman Center has already begun to find chemical markers that identify individuals who might go on to develop insulin resistance and diabetes. This technology could also be applied to heart disease and different forms of cancer— both in making a diagnosis and looking at the severity of the disease.

“The bottom line is: how do we individualize treatment?”

Collaborations

Collaborating with clinical institutions is a key element of Burnham’s strategy to rapidly move discoveries from the laboratory to the clinic. In fact, just prior to the dedication ceremony, the University of Florida announced that they too will build a facility in the Medical City. Their presence will add additional firepower to an already potent lineup of Burnham partners, including M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando and the University of Central Florida.

The Florida Hospital-Burnham Translational Research Institute (TRI) is a great example of how these basic research/clinical partnerships will work. The TRI combines scientists and clinicians with incredible technologies to enhance translational research and bring new treatments to patients. Recently, Steven R. Smith, M.D., was recruited as the TRI’s executive director, one of many new faculty brought to Lake Nona in 2009.

Dr. Smith’s work bridges the gap between cellular and molecular biology and clinical care. His research is focused on obesity, diabetes and the metabolic origins of cardiovascular disease. Specifically, Dr. Smith investigates why some people burn fat when fed a fatty diet while others fail to burn fat and develop health problems like diabetes. He is also trying to understand how obesity leads to type 2 diabetes and examining the relationship between inflammation and diabetes.

“We recently discovered that in some obese people, adipose (fat) tissue becomes hypoxic (starved of oxygen) because there are not enough small blood vessels,” says Dr. Smith. “This leads to inflammation in adipose tissue. There is a growing body of science that shows that inflammation is a major player in the development of type 2 diabetes.”

On the clinical side, Dr. Smith wants to identify and validate drugs to treat obesity and diabetes. His translational work has demonstrated that everyone is unique at the molecular level, suggesting new ways to match therapies to the individual—in other words, personalized medicine.

“One new area that I will be working on in Florida is using antiobesity drugs to treat diabetes,” says Dr. Smith. “We know that the first 10 to 15 pounds lost has a big impact on blood sugar control and metabolism. Many diabetes drugs cause weight gain. Since most people become diabetic because they are overweight, we believe that weight gain is not a desirable effect of diabetes drugs. Weight loss can also prevent the development of diabetes.”

Dr. Daniel Kelly Honored for Groundbreaking Research

Burnham at Lake Nona’s Scientific Director Daniel P. Kelly, M.D., has been awarded the American Heart Association’s 2009 Basic Research Prize, which recognizes his work on molecular biology and the physiology of cardiac metabolism and his vision of how basic research can translate into treatments.

Dr. Kelly’s research focuses on problems in cardiac energy metabolism. His investigations outline metabolism in normal and diseased hearts and the impact of obesity and diabetes on cardiac function. His pioneering work in fuel and energy metabolism is defining new classes of drug targets and sets the stage for more personalized therapies.