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  • Professor, Nutrition & Integrative Physiology

Research Summary

The broad area of research that I am interested in is obesity and cardiovascular disease (CVD). My group is particularly focused on deciphering the cellular events and the molecular mechanisms regulating adipocyte energy dissipation in response to oxidative stress. The overreaching goal of our research is to understand the basic regulation of adipocyte function and to identify factors that can be used to reprogram these cells into energetically more active cells for the treatment of obesity.

Education

  • Bachelor of Science, Animal Physiology, University of Science and Technology in Algeria
  • Master of Science, Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology, Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Biological and Medical Sciences, Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2

Biography

Sihem Boudina is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes, and an Investigator in the Program in Human Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University Of Utah School Of Medicine. She received her bachelor’s degree in Animal Physiology from the University of Science and Technology in Algiers then went to the University of Bordeaux 2 where she did her doctoral studies in Biological and Medical Sciences under the mentorship of Dr. Pierre Dos Santos. She then joined Dr. Dale Abel’s group for a post-doctoral position in 2002. Dr. Boudina was then recruited to the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes as a tenure track Assistant Professor in 2010. She is also the interim director for the Metabolic Phenotyping Core facility at the University of Utah.

Dr. Boudina has had a distinguished career in Diabetes and Cardiovascular related research. As a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dale Abel, she elucidated the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in altering cardiac metabolism, thereby contributing to the pathogenesis of cardiac dysfunction in the diabetic heart. Dr. Boudina also established a new assay to measure mitochondrial respiration using an oxygen sensor probe. Furthermore, she was among the first investigators to show that mitochondrial uncoupling played a crucial role in altered cardiac efficiency in obese animals. Her work was published in the journals Diabetes and Circulation.

As a young investigator, Dr. Boudina has now established her laboratory in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of Utah. Her research interest is focused on the role of oxidative stress in the development of obesity and the related cardiovascular complications. Dr. Boudina is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Boudina has obtained several awards and scholarships such as two post-doctoral fellowships from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the American Heart Association as well as a scientist development grant from the American Heart Assiciation.

Dr. Boudina is committed to mentoring the next generation of researchers. In the past four years she has supervised post-doctoral research fellows, undergraduates and medical students in her laboratory. She has mentored summer students sponsored by the American Heart Association. She also participated as a mentor in the Native American Summer Research Programs sponsored by the University of Utah, Department of Pediatrics and the Bioscience Undergraduate Research Program.