Morris J. Birnbaum, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology

Dr. Birnbaum's Research

Business Address

HHMI/University of Pennsylvania
Department of Medicine
415 Curie Boulevard
322 Clinical Research Building
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6148
Phone: (215) 898-5001
Fax: (215) 573-9138

Education

Undergraduate: Brown University
Degree: A.B.
Medical: Brown University
Degree: M.D.
Postgraduate: Brown University (Biology)
Degree: Ph.D.

Residency

Barnes Hospital
St. Louis, MO
Fellowship:
University of California
San Francisco, CA
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute
New York, NY
Board Certification:
Internal Medicine

Biography

Dr. Birnbaum is a Professor of Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He received his B.A., M.D., and Ph.D. from Brown University, the latter for studies on the hormonal regulation of hepatic glycogenolysis. After internship and residency in internal medicine at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, MO, he completed post-doctoral training as a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco and at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute in the laboratory of the late Ora M. Rosen. He then moved to Harvard Medical School, initially as an Assistant and Associate Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, and then in the Department of Cell Biology.
In 1994, Dr. Birnbaum moved to the University of Pennsylvania to become the Rhoda and Willard Ware Professor of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases and an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Birnbaum's research concerns a number of aspects of the regulation of metabolism and growth. Major problems currently under study include the mechanism by which insulin regulates a number of physiological metabolic functions, particularly glucose uptake into muscle and adipose tissue. These studies include consideration of both insulin signal transduction cascades and the trafficking of the insulin-responsive GLUT4 glucose transporter among various subcellular compartments.
Recently, Dr. Birnbaum has initiated experiments aimed at clarifying how contraction and exercise also stimulate glucose uptake into muscle. It has now become clear that insulin and IGF-1 also exert profound effects on cell survival and growth, even in the absence of concomitant changes in cell proliferation. Dr. Birnbaum is currently studying these processes in mammalian tissue culture cells, mice and in the model organism, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. These observations have led to a consideration of the factors that regulate the growth and survival of pancreatic beta cells, and likely influence susceptibility to pancreatic endocrine failure and diabetes mellitus.

Selected Publications

Holland, W. L., Brozinick, J. T., Wang, L. P., Hawkins, E. D., Sargent, K. M., Liu, Y., Narra, K., Hoehn, K. L., Knotts, T. A., Siesky, A., Nelson, D. H., Karathanasis, S. K., Fontenot, G. K., Birnbaum, M. J., Summers, S. A. (2007) Inhibition of ceramide synthesis ameliorates glucocorticoid-, saturated-fat-, and obesity-induced insulin resistance. Cell Metab. 5:167-79.

Fernández-Hernando, C., Ackah, E., Yu, J., Suárez, Y., Murata, .T, Iwakiri, Y., Prendergast, J., Miao, R. Q., Birnbaum, M. J., Sessa, W. C.(2007) Loss of Akt1 Leads to Severe Atherosclerosis and Occlusive Coronary Artery Disease. Cell Metab. 6:446-57

Gleason, C. E., Lu, D., Witters, L. A., Newgard, C. B., Birnbaum, M. J. (2007). The role of AMPK and mTOR in nutrient sensing in pancreatic beta-cells J. Biol. Chem. 282:10341-51

Li, X., Monks, B., Ge, Q., Birnbaum, M. J. (2007) Akt/PKB regulates hepatic metabolism by directly inhibiting PGC-1a. Nature. 447:1012-6.

Birnbaum, Morris J. (2008) Sweet Conundrum. Science 319:1348-1349