Executive Committee

Megan received her B.A. in Biochemistry from Brandeis University working with Dr. Susan Lowey and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania working with Dr. Mark Lemmon. During her postdoctoral training with Dr. Günter Blobel at Rockefeller University, she discovered new mechanisms for the targeting and function of integral inner nuclear membrane proteins. Since founding her own group in 2009, Megan has continued to investigate the broad array of biological functions that are integrated at the nuclear envelope, from impacts on DNA repair to nuclear and cellular mechanics. Megan was named a Searle Scholar in 2011, is a recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award and is currently an Allen Distinguished Investigator.

Dr. Kibbey is a clinically-active physician scientist focused on metabolic diseases, particularly mitochondrial metabolism and metabolic signaling. His research revealed mitochondrial GTP (mtGTP) as a key part of the glucose-sensing mechanism in pancreatic beta-cells, leading to the identification of the PEP cycle—a metabolic circuit involving pyruvate kinase, pyruvate carboxylase, mitochondrial PEPCK, and the GTP isoform of succinyl CoA synthase. This pathway enables glucose concentration sensing and resolves the limitations of the traditional beta-cell glucose sensing model by aligning KATP channel closure with PEP cycling. Furthermore, Pyruvate Kinase was identified for its role in mitochondrial ADP privation- a metabolic signal that repurposes mitochondria function from OxPhos to biosynthesis and signaling a high energy state. Targeting this process in vivo boosts glucosestimulated insulin secretion, preserves beta-cell health, reduces hepatic gluconeogenesis, and improves insulin sensitivity. The Kibbey lab is working to translate these findings into a new class of obesity therapies. Dr. Kibbey’s graduate training at UTSW was in NMR protein structure and dynamics. At Yale, his expertise expanded to include 13C mass spectrometry, islet biology, hepatic metabolism, insulin resistance and secretion, and bioenergetics, with applications to cellular, cancer, and animal models. His lab developed the Mass Isotopomeric Multi-Ordinate Spectroscopic Analysis (MIMOSA) platform using LC/MS/MS to interpret isotopomer patterns from mitochondrial metabolism. He directs the program in Mitochondrial Biology and Intermediary Metabolism as well as the university’s Chemical Metabolism Core, which measures islet function, oxygen consumption, metabolomics, and metabolic flux using MIMOSA. Dr. Kibbey co-founded Elucidata, providing the Polly biomedical omics data platform, and State 4 Therapeutics, focused on oral small molecules for obesity treatment. Dr. Kibbey is also committed to mentorship and education. He is Associate Director for the graduate program in Translational Biomedicine and co-director of graduate studies, having mentored or co-mentored numerous trainees, including undergraduates, medical students, residents, graduate students, and postdocs—many of whom have advanced to academic and research careers. He has served on >19 thesis committees and currently leads a group of graduate, masters, and postdoctoral trainees. He co-directs the Mitochondrial Bioenergetics and Intermediary Metabolism course, actively contributes to the Yale Center for Molecular and Systems Metabolism, and co-directs the graduate level course in Mitochondrial Biology and Intermediary Metabolism.

Dr. Jonathan Bogan is a physician-scientist and educator. Dr. Bogan’s research focuses on how glucose uptake and energy expenditure are regulated by insulin and other stimuli, which control membrane trafficking to distribute glucose transporters and other proteins to the surface of fat and muscle cells. This work has led to more basic studies of subcellular architecture, how cell structure is adapted in a cell type-specific manner to enable insulin action, and how this is altered in disease. Related studies have focused on insulin secretion. Dr. Bogan is active clinically and serves as an Attending Physician on both the inpatient Internal Medicine and Endocrinology Consultation services at Yale-New Have Hospital. Dr. Bogan’s educational activities include service as a Course Director for the Yale Program in Translational Biomedicine, as Assistant Director for Education for the Yale M.D.-Ph.D. Program, and as Co-Director of the Energy and Metabolism Master Course in the Yale pre-clerkship M.D. curriculum.

My training as a physician scientist motivates me to seek new treatments for chronic lung diseases.  I have spent more than 15 years pursuing this goal by studying the relationship mechanisms of fibrotic remodeling in the adult mammalian lung. My laboratory has had a sustained impact on the field of pulmonary fibrosis and is credited with several seminal discoveries that have been verified and reproduced in laboratories around the world. My early work helped ignite interest in the mechanism(s) through which innate immunity is linked to pulmonary fibrosis. For example, my lab was the first to report that monocytes from patients with Scleroderma associated lung fibrosis adopt profibrotic properties following DAMP stimulation. We reported that the lungs of mice exposed to fibrotic stimuli, and humans with IPF, contain aberrantly activated macrophages that can be repolarized with innate immune agonists to attenuate experimentally induced lung fibrosis. We also are credited with linking intracellular DNA sensors and their ligands with numerous forms of interstitial lung disease. Most recently we reported that a previously unrecognized nerve-lung connection drives mammalian lung fibrosis.  My work has been published in journals such as Science, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Medicine, Cell, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. I have been a continuous recipient of NIH funding since 2005 in the form of K08, R01 and U01 awards, and have been honored by my peers with the Jo Rae Wright Award from the American Thoracic Society and induction into the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI).    My discoveries in these domains have been informed by collaborations with Yale immunologists, neuroscientists, and bioengineers with the goal of developing new ways to improve respiratory health.

Keith Choate M.D., Ph.D., is a physician-scientist who employs tools of human genetics to understand fundamental mechanisms of disease. His laboratory studies rare inherited and mosaic skin disorders to identify novel genes responsible for epidermal differentiation and development.  His laboratory has identified the genetic basis of over 12 disorders and has developed new therapeutic approaches informed by genetic findings.  His laboratory is funded by the National Institute of Arthritis and of Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health.Dr. Choate mentors undergraduate, graduate, and medical students in his laboratory, teaches at Yale Medical School, and trains resident physicians and fellows.

Dr. Cantley performed his clinical Internal Medicine training at the University of North Carolina followed by Nephrology fellowship training at the Beth Israel and Brigham and Women's Hospitals in Boston. He then entered research training at Harvard in the laboratories of Dr. Franklin Epstein and Dr. Guido Guidotti before accepting a faculty position at the Beth Israel. In 2000 Dr. Cantley moved from Harvard to Yale where he established his research focus on the reparative tubular responses to kidney injury.