Venezia by PVII

Dr. BierDennis M. Bier, M.D.

Professor of Pediatrics
Baylor College of Medicine
Director, CNRC
dbier@bcm.tmc.edu

Attending Physician
Section of GI and Nutrition
Texas Children's Hospital

Regulation of Interorgan Transport of Metabolic Fuels

My primary research interest is the regulation of interorgan transport of metabolic fuels.  Specifically, this interest encompasses the substrate and hormone regulation of glucose, lipid and protein/amino acid fuels.  Under this rubric, my work has extended in two principal directions.  The first entails the regulation of endogenous fuel availability for metabolic functions when a subject is ill and incapable of ingesting adequate quantities of food.  The second involves the assessment of the metabolic fates of ingested, exogenous fuels under various classical nutritional circumstances.

To accomplish these aims, my associates and I have developed and employed a wide variety of stable-isotope tracer kinetic methods to quantify substrate flux, metabolism, precursor-product relationships, and irreversible oxidation of excreted end products.  The physiological information thus obtained has also been used to further assess aberrations in interorgan fuel transport consequent to a wide variety of pathological conditions.  In the upcoming years, I will continue to employ stable isotope kinetic modeling approaches to address important developmental and clinical questions concerning the regulation of fuel transport in infants and children.

Representative publications:

Sunehag AL, Toffolo G, Campioni M, Bier DM, Haymond MW. Effects of dietary macronutrient intake on insulin sensitivity and secretion and glucose and lipid metabolism in healthy, obese adolescents. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 90(8):4496-4502, 2005.

Zeisel SH, Freake HC, Bauman DE, Bier DM, Burrin DG, German JB, Klein S, Marquis GS, Milner JA, Pelto GH, Rasmussen KM. The nutritional phenotype in the age of metabolomics. J Nutr. 135(7):1613-1616., 2005.

Ciliberto H, Ciliberto M, Briend A, Ashorn P, Bier D, Manary M. Antioxidant supplementation for the prevention of kwashiorkor in Malawian children: randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial. BMJ. 330(7500):1109, 2005.

Mullis RM, Blair SN, Aronne LJ, Bier DM, Denke MA, Dietz W, Donato KA, Drewnowski A, French SA, Howard BV, Robinson TN, Swinburn B, Wechsler H; American Heart Association. Prevention Conference VII: Obesity, a worldwide epidemic related to heart disease and stroke: Group IV: prevention/treatment. Circulation. 2;110(18):e484-e488, 2004.

Hanson M, Gluckman P, Bier D, Challis J, Fleming T, Forrester T, Godfrey K, Nestel P, Yajnik C. Report on the 2nd World Congress on Fetal Origins of Adult Disease, Brighton, U.K., June 7-10, 2003. Pediatr Res. 55(5):894-897, 2004.

Bier DM. Amino acid pharmacokinetics and safety assessment. J Nutr. Jun;133(6 Suppl 1):2034S-2039S, 2003.

Treuth MS, Sunehag AL, Trautwein LM, Bier DM, Haymond MW, Butte NF. Metabolic adaptation to high-fat and high-carbohydrate diets in children and adolescents. Am J Clin Nutr 77:479-89, 2003.

Bier DM. Current uses and future perspectives of recombinant modifications in food production. In: Genetic Expression and Nutrition. Nestle Nutrition Workshop Series Pediatric Program, Volume 50.  Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, pp 201-218, 2002.

Sunehag AL, Toffolo G, Treuth MS, Butte NF, Cobelli C, Bier DM, Haymond MW. Effects of  dietary macronutrient content on glucose metabolism in children. J Clin Endocrinol. & Metab. 87 (11):5168-5178, 2002.

Miller TL, Easely KA, Zhang W, Orav EJ, Bier DM, Luder E, Ting A, Shearer WT, Vargas JH,  Lipshultz SE. Maternal and infant factors associated with failure to thrive in children with vertically transmitted HIV-1 infection: The prospective P2C2 HIV multicenter study. Pediatr. 108:1287-1296, 2001.

Kalhan S, Bier DM, Yaffe S, Catz C, Grave G. Amino acid metabolism and nutrition in very low birth weight infants. J Perinatol . 21:320-323, 2001.