For Your Health
For Your Health

News from the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences

Paul Huang to present on interstitial lipoprotein trafficking and metabolic disease on Dec. 17

The UND Department of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS) Host-Pathogen Interactions CoBRE Group present their next Faculty Candidate Seminar on Tuesday, Dec. 17. At noon in SMHS Room E224, Paul (Li-Hao) Huang, Ph.D., instructor in the Washington University School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology and Immunology, will present “Interstitial lipoprotein trafficking mediated by immune responses and its link to metabolic diseases.”

One big unsolved question in the atherosclerosis and lipoprotein field is: Why is it that drugs designed to increase levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (“good cholesterol”) in the body are unable to improve clinical outcomes? An overlooked field of research focusing on how HDL moves through human organs and tissues, outside of blood vessels where HDL actually does its main work, is exploring answers to this question. Very generally, it is here, outside the tissues, that HDL seems to “pick up” cholesterol. This HDL then recirculates back to blood plasma through lymphatic vasculature to the liver for excretion. If this is true, we are encouraged to better understand the behavior of HDL as it moves through tissues instead of only measuring the levels of plasma HDL.

Come and learn more at noon on Dec. 17!