Dr. Hector Palacios joined the Department of Medicine in the Nutritional Science and Obesity Medicine Division as an Instructor in March 2024. He obtained his PhD in Metabolic Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, where he conducted research under the guidance of Professor Marc Hellerstein. His research focused on investigating the effects of lifespan-extension interventions, such as calorie restriction regulation by Nitric Oxide and modified protein intake, on targeted liver and muscle protein synthesis rates in rodent models of aging using 2H2O techniques such as Mass Isotope Distribution Analysis (MIDA). Following the completion of his doctoral studies, Dr. Palacios completed a 3-year postdoctoral research fellowship funded by the T32 WUSTL Transdisciplinary Pre- and Postdoctoral Training Program in Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease in Dr. Samuel Klein’s laboratory at Washington University School of Medicine.
During his time in the Klein lab, he has been involved in the evaluation of liver, muscle, and adipose tissue lipidomics in individuals with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). Dr. Palacios’ training is in the area of nutritional science and metabolism, where he aims to employ advanced in vivo and ex vivo research methods, alongside mathematical modeling techniques for analyzing metabolic data, in the field of human metabolism within a clinical context. His particular interest lies in the study of nutritional biochemistry and its profound influence on the mechanisms underlying obesity and insulin resistance. By focusing on primary insulin targets like skeletal muscle, liver, and adipose tissue, he aims to unravel the intricate mechanisms of diet-induced metabolic syndrome in human studies. Dr. Palacios intends to employ stable isotope tracer techniques in conjunction with mass spectrometry, including metabolomics, lipidomics, and proteomics, to achieve this.