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About Us

The Institute of Metabolic Disorders (IMD) focuses on drug discovery for the treatment of lipid-dependent fatty liver disease (NAFLD/NASH). The Institute will strive to become a respected leader in the field of metabolic disease treatment. Our goal is to increase the quality of life for individuals with metabolic pathologies associated with loss of liver function.

Patents
Publications

Villasmil, M.L., Ansbach, A., and Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2011) The putative lipid transporter, Arv1, is required for activating pheromone-induced MAP kinase signaling in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Genetics 187 455-465
Nolt, J.K., Rice, L.M., Gallo-Ebert, C., Bisher, M.E., and Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2011) PP2A^Cdc55 is required for multiple events during meiosis I. Cell Cycle 10 1420-1434
Villasmil, M.L., and Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2011) Determination of the membrane topology of Arv1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the requirement of the ER luminal region for Arv1 function. FEMS Yeast Res. 11 524-527
Gallo-Ebert, C., McCourt, P.C., Donigan, M., Villasmil, M.L., Pandya, D., Franco, J., Chadwick, S.G., Gygax, S.E., and Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2012) Arv1 lipid transporter function is conserved between pathogenic and nonpathogenic fungi. Fungal Genetic. Biol. 49 101-113
McCourt, P., Gallo-Ebert, C., Gonhong, Y., Jiang, Y., and Joseph T. Nickels, Jr. (2013) PP2A^Cdc55 regulates G1 cyclin stability. Cell Cycle 12 1201-1210 *Article featured in Cell Cycle “News and Views”. Noguchi, E (2013) PP2A^Cdc55, a possible therapeutic target in cyclin D1-dependent cancers. Cell Cycle 12 1484
Gallo-Ebert, C., Donigan, M., Liu, H-Y., Pascual, F., Manners, M., Pandya, D., Swanson, R., Gallagher, D., Chen, W., Carman, G.M., Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2013) The yeast anaerobic response element AR1b regulates aerobic antifungal drug-dependent sterol gene expression. J. Biol. Chem. 288 35466-35477
Gallo-Ebert, C., Donigan, M., Stroke, I.L., Swanson, R.N., Manners, M.T., Francisco, J., Toner, G., Gallagher, D., Huang, C-Y., Gygax, S.E., Webb, M., and Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2014) Novel antifungal drug discovery based on targeting pathways regulating the fungal-conserved Upc2 transcription factor. Antimicrob. Agents and Chemother. 58 258-266
Yang, M., Liu, W., Pellicane, C., Sahyoun, C., Joseph, B., Gallo-Ebert, C., Donigan, M., Pandya, D., Giordano, C., Bata, A, and Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2014) Identification of miR-185 as a regulator of de novo cholesterol biosynthesis and low-density lipoprotein uptake. J. Lipid Res. 55 226-238
Rice, L. M., Donigan, M., Yang, M., Liu, W., Pandya, D., Joseph, B., Sodi, V., Gearhart, T. L., Yip, J., Bouchard, M. B., and Nickels, Jr., J. T. (2014) Protein phosphatase 2A regulates low-density lipoprotein uptake through regulating SREBP-2 DNA binding J. Biol. Chem. 289 17268-17279
Joseph, B., Liu, H-Y., Francisco, J., Pandya, D., Donigan, M., Gallo-Ebert, C., Giordano, C., Bata, A., Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2015) Inhibition of AMP kinase by the protein phosphatase 2A heterotrimer, PP2A^Ppp2r2d J. Biol. Chem. 290 10588-10598
Pallai, R., Bhaskar, A., Burnett-Bernodat, N., Gallo-Ebert, C., Michelle Pusey, Nickels, Jr., J. T., Rice, L. M. (2015) Cancerous inhibitor of protein phosphatase 2A (CIP2A) promotes premature chromosome segregation and aneuploidy in prostate cancer cells through association with shugoshin. Tumor Biol. 36 6067-6074
Pallai, R., Bhaskar, A., Burnett-Bernodat, N., Gallo-Ebert, C., Nickels, Jr., J. T., Rice, L. M. (2015) Leucine rich repeat-containing protein 59 mediates nuclear import of cancerous inhibitor of PP2A in prostate cancer cells. Tumor Biol. 36 6368-6390
Yang, M. and Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2015) MOGAT: A new therapeutic target for metabolic syndrome. Diseases 3 179-192
Villasmil, M. L., Francisco, J., Gallo-Ebert, C., Donigan, M., Liu, H-Y., Brower, M., and Nickels, J. T., Jr. (2016) Ceramide signals for initiation of yeast mating-specific cell cycle arrest. Cell Cycle 15 441-454 *Article featured in Cell Cycle “News and Views”. Matmati N, Kitagaki, and Hannun, YA (2016) New role for ceramide in the pheromone response. Cell Cycle 15 617-618
McCourt, P., Liu, Hsing-Yin., Parker, J.E., Gallo-Ebert, C., Donigan, M., Bata, A., Giordano, C., Kelly, SL., and Nickels, JT., Jr. Proper sterol distribution is required for Candida albicans hyphal formation and virulence (2016) G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics (in press)

Yang, G., Pellicane, C.A., and Nickels, Jr., J.T. (2016) A method of enhancing miR-185 expression to reduce low density lipoprotein/cholesterol accumulation in a cell. Patent # 9,243,250 B2