By Duke Medicine News and Communications

DURHAM, N.C. -- Christopher Newgard, Ph.D., director of the Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, has received a $500,000 grant from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Freedom to Discover program. The unrestricted grant supports Newgard's research to better understand obesity and diabetes by studying mechanisms of metabolic regulation in the liver and pancreatic beta cells. Newgard and his colleagues hope to develop new therapeutic strategies by investigating metabolic signatures of obesity and related metabolic diseases.

The Freedom to Discover program supports cutting-edge research in cancer, nutrition, neuroscience, cardiovascular, infectious and metabolic diseases and synthetic organic chemistry. Six million dollars in grants were awarded this year.