Hallett Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology

Haiyan Xu, MD

Assistant professor of medicine,
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Haiyan Xu, MD, joined the faculty as assistant professor of medicine in the division of endocrinology in 2005. Her education includes an MD degree from Beijing Medical University, an MS from the same school and a PhD from Harvard University.She was a researcher in the department of metabolic disease biology at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from 2000 to 2003 and moved to the metabolic disease research division at Abbott Laboratories in 2004. Her honors include the Edgar Haber Award in Biological Sciences and the Medical Sigma Xi Harvard-Radcliffe Chapter Scientific Recognition Award from Harvard University.

A major focus of Xu's research is on the mechanisms of obesity-related insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Her work is particularly focused on the correlation of adipose inflammation and insulin signaling in obesity, novel factors in the regulation of adipose energy metabolism and mechanisms controlling hepatic gluconeogenesis. Her discovery of obesity-induced macrophage infiltration in adipose tissue has revealed a new mechanism contributing to the systemic inflammatory response that complicates obesity and diabetes. This work was selected as one of the milestone discoveries in the 80-year publication history of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Her current research projects include studies on the factors responsible for trigerring obesity-induced adipose macrophage infiltration, the roles of novel AMPK-related kinases in adipocyte biology and the effects of two phosphatases on insulin signaling in liver and adipose tissue.

Representative Publications:

1. Haiyan Xu, Glenn T. Barnes, Qing Yang, Guo Tan, Daseng Yang, Chieh J. Chou, Jason Sole, Andrew Nichols, Jeffrey S. Ross, Louis A. Tartaglia and Hong Chen. Chronic inflammation in adipose tissue plays a crucial role in the development of obesity-related insulin resistance. J Clin Invest 112: 1821-1830, 2003.

2. Haiyan Xu, Marlene Dembski, Qing Yang, Daseng Yang, Ann Moriarty, Olga Tayber, Hong Chen, Rosana Kapeller and Louis A. Tartaglia. Dual specificity MAP kinase phosphatase 4 plays a potential role in insulin resistance. J Biol Chem 278: 30187-30192, 2003.

3. Haiyan Xu, Jiro Hirosumi, K. Teoman Uysal, A. Deniz Guler and Gökhan S. Hotamisligil. Exclusive action of transmembrane TNF-alpha in adipose tissue leads to reduced adipose mass and local but not systemic insulin resistance Endocrinology 143 (4): 1502-11, 2002.

4. Haiyan Xu, K. Teoman Uysal, J. David Becherer, Peter Arner and Gökhan S. Hotamisligil. Altered TNF-alpha processing in adipocytes and increased expression of transmembrane TNF-alpha in obesity. Diabetes 51 (6), 1876-1883, 2002.

5. Qiang Tong, Gökhan Dalgin, Haiyan Xu, Chao-Nan Ting, Jeffrey M. Leiden, Gökhan S. Hotamisligil. Function of GATA transcription factors in preadipocyte-adipocyte transition. Science 290: 134-38, 2000.

6. Haiyan Xu, Jaswinder Sethi, Gökhan S. Hotamisligil. The transmembrane form of tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibits adipocyte differentiation by selectively activating tumor necrosis factor receptor I. Biol Chem 274: 26287-26295, 1999.

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