Sabrİ Ülker Center
HotamiŞlıgil Lab
Gökhan Hotamışlıgil
MD, PhD
Principal Investigator
James S. Simmons Professor, Department of Molecular Metabolism
Director of the Sabri Ülker Center for Metabolic Research
Research Scientist
Dr. Ana Paula Arruda was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She received her PhD in Biochemistry at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She joined the Sabri Ülker Center and Hotamışlıgil lab in July 2010. Dr. Arruda is working on the organelle dynamics and calcium homeostasis in physiology and disease context such as obesity.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. M. Furkan Burak is a clinical fellow in Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School, Division of Endocrinology and research fellow in the Sabri Ülker Center. He graduated from Kocaeli University School of Medicine. After his initial postdoctoral fellowship at the Sabri Ülker Center, he completed an internal medicine residency at Mount Auburn Hospital / Harvard Medical School and his clinical part of Endocrinology Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School. His research mainly focused on the role of fatty acid binding proteins in diabetes and obesity and development of new therapeutic strategies in obesity related metabolic diseases such as diabetes, fatty liver disease and asthma. His clinical practice is focused on immune-metabolic endocrine diseases in Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Garfinkel grew up in the city of Rehovot in Israel. He graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also completed his PhD research on bone development and maternal behavior. He is now now studying the way crosstalk between the ER and the nucleus regulates inflammation, and how cholesterol can get in the way.
Research Associate
Dr Gonçalves grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She completed her PhD on mitochondrial metabolism of blood-sucking mosquitoes at joint program from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and NIH/NIAID, USA. During her postdoctoral training she focused on the mechanism of mitochondrial oxidant species production working with Dr. Martin Brand at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Now, Dr. Gonçalves is a Research Associate at the Sabri Ülker center working with Dr. Hotamışlıgil to understand the regulation of energy metabolism in metabolic diseases.
GUROL TUNCMAN
Research Scientist
Dr. Karen Inouye grew up in a suburb of Montreal, Quebec and then moved to Oakville, Ontario during high school. She did her undergraduate studies at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario and then her PhD in Physiology at the University of Toronto, in the lab of Dr. Mladen Vranic, one of the last fellows in the lab of Dr. George Best, co-discoverer of insulin. She specializes in in vivo metabolic physiology studies, particularly the glucose clamp technique, which she learned in Dr. Vranic’s lab. In the Hotamışlıgil lab, she is studying the role of non-adipose sources of FABP4 in physiology.
Research Associate
Dr. Grace Lee received her PhD in Chemistry at State University of New York at Binghamton. She did her postdoctoral training in atherosclerosis pathophysiology with Dr. Ira Tabas at Columbia University, followed by a 5-year stint in drug discovery research targeting cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Dr. Lee joined the Hotamışlıgil lab in 2012. Her main interest is to identify novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of metabolic diseases as well as facilitating the streamlining of validated targets into drug discovery pipeline. Currently she is involved in the development of blocking antibodies for circulating FABP4.
Ülker Center Fellow
Dr. Güneş Parlakgül was born in Istanbul, Turkey. He received his MD degree at Istanbul University in 2014 and joined the lab as the first Sabri Ülker Postdoctoral Research Fellow in January 2015. Dr. Parlakgül is working on the organelle dynamics and homeostasis in physiology and disease context such as obesity.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Prentice is a postdoctoral fellow who joined the Hotamışlıgil lab in 2015. Originally from Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, she obtained both her hBSc and PhD at the University of Toronto. Kacey is interested in understanding the molecular basis for how circulating factors influence insulin secretion, and how these may contribute to beta cell dysfunction and the development of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. She is currently working on defining how the circulating protein aP2 may influence these pathways.
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Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Saksi is a postdoctoral fellow who joined the Hotamışlıgil lab in 2016. Originally from Tornio, Finland, he obtained both his MSc and PhD degrees at the University of Helsinki. The major focus of his research has been on the molecular mechanisms that contribute to symptom generation in human atherosclerosis, and specifically the role of aP2 protein in lipid metabolism and cardiometabolic diseases.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Tsaousidou comes from Thessaloniki, Greece, where she also obtained her degree in Biology/Genetics from Aristotle University. She then moved to Cologne, Germany, and under the supervision of Jens Brüning, director of the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research, she received her MSc and PhD with a scholarship from the International Graduate School in Development Health and Disease of the University of Cologne. She is currently working on metaflammation.
Research Scientist
Dr. Gürol Tunçman is a Research Scientist in Hotamışlıgil Lab. He obtained his MD and PhD in Ankara University, Turkey, and joined the lab in 2001. He is interested in how metabolic state of a cell/tissue is translated to an immune response, and in this context is currently trying to understand the role of aP2 (Fatty Acid Binding Protein 4) in allergic and obesity related airway disease.
Nitsan Garfinkel
Laboratory Manager
Nitsan was born and raised in Israel, where she earned her BSc and MSc in Biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She also holds an MA in special education.
Paulina Cedillo
Research Assistant
Paulina is from Los Angeles, CA. She recently graduated from the University of California, Berkeley where she received a degree in Molecular and Cell Biology and a minor in Nutritional Sciences. She plans to pursue a career in health care and, in her free time, enjoys painting and finding new coffee shops.
Carla Julieta Gonzalez
Research Assistant
Nina Min
Research Assistant
Nina Min will graduate Williams College with a degree in Statistics. During her time at Williams, Nina was a coxswain, traveled to Liberia, and studied abroad at the University of Oxford.
Lily Greene
Research Assistant
Lily is originally from Wolfeboro, NH and graduated from Boston University with a degree in Biology in Spring 2018. She loves all things Harry Potter, and plans to pursue a career in medicine.
David Hastings
Senior Advisor
Natalie Kopp
Associate Director of Development,
Office for External Relations
Arielle Perry
Executive Assistant