Online | Lecture | Metabolic Syndrome, Genetics, and the Environment

Join us for the GW Biomedical Cross-disciplinary Seminar Series: Connecting Academic Research & Inquiry Across Disciplines. This virtual lecture series explores a new cross-disciplinary topic each year.  The goal is to promote networking and collaboration in translational health among researchers, health care providers, and policy makers from different disciplines to shift the paradigm—from seeking a cure to developing a strategy of prevention. The 2021-22 seminar series topic is metabolic syndrome. 

This lecture on Metabolic Syndrome, Genetics, and the Environment will be presented by Ike Okosun, PhD, MPH, FTOS, FACE, an Associate Professor of epidemiology and biostatistics in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Georgia State University. His research focuses on investigating the epidemiology of metabolic syndrome, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia in populations of African origin.

His current research involves investigating epigenetic markers underlying increased risk of high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes in populations of West-African ancestry. His aim is to disentangle the scientific puzzle of these diseases by exploring the role and relative contribution of (1) environmental changes due to migration and (2) the effect of migration on epigenetic modification via patterns of DNA methylation. The premise of his research is that environmental changes following migration alters DNA methylation levels creating epigenetic signature and subsequent increase in high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Okosun is a member of many scientific organizations and editorial boards. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health, The Obesity Society, and a member of the Board of the The American College of Epidemiology (ACE).