For more information, contact George Stamatis, 216-368-3635 or gxs18@po.cwru.edu.

Posted 12-20-99

Kalhan studies perinatal/neontal metabolism

Satish Kalhan has devoted his research career to studying human metabolism, particularly during the perinatal/neonatal period. Now, as he studies the environment in which fetal growth and nourishment occur, the research center he directs is growing inside another, new environment.

For 18 years, Kalhan has directed the Perinatal Emphasis Research Center (PERC) program. PERC originally was located at MetroHealth Medical Center and then moved to University Hospitals of Cleveland's Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital for nine years before moving back to MetroHealth in fall 1998.

Despite changes in its physical location, however, PERC's long-range objective has remained the same -- to explore the influence of the maternal metabolic and nutritional environment and its disturbances on maternal, fetal, and newborn metabolism and growth.

The latest relocation happened in conjunction with PERC becoming part of the new Center for Metabolism and Nutrition, a multidisciplinary, multidepartmental center that, like other centers, is "designed to allow us to examine disease processes and physiological processes from many perspectives," Kalhan said.

A professor of pediatrics, Kalhan came to Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine in 1970 and is now an international leader in his field.

Faculty participating in PERC have included investigators from MetroHealth, UHC, and basic science departments of the School of Medicine.

The new center is now called the Robert Schwartz, M.D., Center for Metabolism and Nutrition, in honor of the former CWRU pediatrics professor who was director of the pediatrics department at MetroHealth.

"Dr. Schwartz, who is professor emeritus of pediatrics at Brown University, has made important contributions to the understanding of carbohydrate metabolism in infants and children," Kalhan said.

The largest source of grant funding at the Center for Metabolism and Nutrition is the five-year, $2.8 million grant renewal PERC has received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). (The center also receives funding through the General Clinical Research Center [GCRC] grant from NIH and institutional support from MetroHealth.)

This renewal continues funding that Kalhan has received since 1977, and the funding's longevity puts the center in rare company, he said: "This grant has received 20 years of continuous funding from the NIH, and this renewal will take us to the 25th year."

The grant focuses on four main areas of ongoing research:

• Gestational diabetes and fetal growth (Patrick M. Catalano, professor of reproductive biology at CWRU and director of MetroHealth's reproductive biology department; with Jacob E. Friedman, assistant professor of nutrition)
• The role of diet and exercise in fetal growth (James F. Clapp III, professor of reproductive biology and associate director of the GCRC)
• Glucose and amino acid metabolism during pregnancy (Kalhan)
• Early nutrient experiences and development of obesity. (Former biochemistry professor Mulchand Patel, who is now chairman of biochemistry at the State University of New York at Buffalo)

In addition to PERC research, the Center for Metabolism and Nutrition is undertaking several other projects through local and NIH funding.

Arthur J. McCollough, professor of medicine, and colleagues are studying the nutritional and metabolic management of liver disease.

Kalhan is studying how newborn babies adapt to the extrauterine environment and is trying to determine the best ways to provide nutrients to premature babies with very low birth weights.

xx307@po.cwru.edu -- About this server -- Copyright 1994-2001 CWRU -- Unauthorized use prohibited