Susanne Clee
Dr. Clee performed her graduate work in the Genetics Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia and postdoctoral training in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. She returned to Canada in 2007 as Canada Research Chair in the Genetics of Obesity and Diabetes, and is a member of the Diabetes Research Group at the Life Sciences Institute and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Clee’s research focuses on the use of mouse models for the discovery of new genetic factors affecting complex metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Her prior work led to the identification of genes regulating plasma insulin levels and has been published in top journals such as Nature Genetics. Currently, one line of investigation is providing new clues about the development of obesity and regulation of food intake. In another study Dr. Clee is working to discover new factors that affect how much insulin is released into the blood following a meal. In perhaps her most exciting work, she has found a type of mouse that can eat a high fat diet worse than today’s human diets but doesn’t gain any weight. Her upcoming studies will work to find the genetic factors that protect these mice.