Design and Exploration of Sphingolipid Mimetics in Lipid Metabolism

In this project we designed and made medicine-like molecules that mimic the sphingolipids to determine whether the modulation of sphingolipids can treat metabolic disease-associated fatty liver disease. These molecules were tested in a representative cell-based fatty liver model we developed to screen for lipid lowering effects. These efforts have uncovered a new class of molecule which modulates sphingolipids and independently reduces lipid levels in liver cells. Overall, this work has lead to the discovery of a new potential medicine class which has the potential to treat MAFLD through two independent modes.