image: Friedman will extend studies linking metabolism, diet and obesity. view more
Credit: Paola Nogueras
PHILADELPHIA (April 10, 2008) -- Monell Center scientist Mark I. Friedman, PhD has been selected to receive a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue his work on diet and obesity.
The prestigious fellowships are awarded to established scholars in the fields of science, humanities, and creative arts “on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.”
Selected from a pool of over 2,600 applicants, Friedman is one of 190 recipients who will share a total of $8.2 million in awards.
“The Guggenheim Fellowship is a great honor,” says Friedman. “It will allow me broaden my thinking about the etiology of obesity, extend my research perspective, and foster a more integrated approach to this critically important research.”
Friedman’s research focuses on how energy metabolism affects eating behavior. Studies in his laboratory have established that the liver acts as an energy sensor, detecting and relaying information about the body’s fuel metabolism to the brain to control food intake. He has authored over 150 publications covering laboratory and theoretical work on appetite, hunger and satiety, food preferences, and obesity.
The Guggenheim award will enable Friedman to expand his research on how diet composition – in particular the interaction of dietary fat and carbohydrate – affects metabolism to cause overeating and obesity. The findings will serve as the basis and provide direction for a larger program of research to elucidate the mechanisms that drive diet-induced obesity.
A leading researcher in the field of eating behavior for over 30 years, Friedman has been a member of Monell’s faculty since 1982. In addition to his research program, he also holds administrative appointments as Associate Director of the Monell Center and as Chair of Monell’s Technology Transfer Program.
Since 1925, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has granted over $265 million in Fellowships to nearly 16,500 individuals. This year’s Fellows represent eighty-one academic institutions and seventy-five different disciplines, from composers to sociologists to biologists.
The Monell Chemical Senses Center is a nonprofit basic research institute based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For 40 years, Monell has been the nation’s leading academic research center focused on understanding the senses of smell and taste: how they function and affect lives from before birth through old age. Using a multidisciplinary approach, scientists collaborate in the areas of: sensation and perception, neuroscience and molecular biology, environmental and occupational health, nutrition and appetite, health and well being, and chemical ecology and communication. For more information about Monell, visit www.monell.org.