PECASE Honoree James Olzmann Investigates the Secrets of Lipid Droplets

Note to our Biomedical Beat readers: Echoing the sentiments NIH Director Francis Collins made on his blog, NIGMS is making every effort during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep supporting the best and most powerful science. In that spirit, we’ll continue to bring you stories across a wide range of NIGMS topics. We hope these posts offer a respite from the coronavirus news when needed. A cell nucleus (blue) surrounded by lipid droplets (yellow). Credit: James Olzmann. Within our cells, lipids are often stored in droplets, membrane-bound packages of lipids produced by the endoplasmic reticulum. For many years, scientists thought lipid droplets were simple globs of fat and rarely studied them. But over the past few decades, research has revealed that they’re full-fledged organelles, or specialized structures that perform important cellular functions. The field of lipid droplet research has been growing ever since. James Olzmann, Ph.D. , associate professor of nutritional sciences and toxicology at the University of California, Berkeley, and an investigator at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, is examining these long-understudied organelles to learn more about their basic biology and their role in conditions such as obesity and fatty liver disease. Dr. Olzmann’s lab is studying how: The endoplasmic reticulum produces lipid dropletsCells regulate the amount of lipid dropletsProteins found on the surface of lipid droplets functionLipid droplets communicate with o...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Being a Scientist Molecular Structures Cellular Processes Source Type: blogs