 By formation, I am an endocrinologist, a specialty that studies hormones and since medical school I was fascinated by the effects of hormones on the whole body and the interaction with other organs. Here we do studies on obesity and metabolic syndrome, which is diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia but mostly we study the effects of a specific hormone called leptin on the regulation of food intake, energy metabolism, immunity and brain function. In the lab we have some experiments going on. We are studying leptin deficient mice, which are mice that don't have the hormone leptin. So they are very obese, they are diabetic and we are doing at post-tissue transplantations in this mice. So we are reversing the leptin deficient state with the transplantations. So we are doing those experiments and assessing the effects of transplantation on body weight, behavior, glucose metabolism. We have short-term goals and long-term goals. Short-term goals are to further develop our studies on at post-tissue transplantation and stem cell transplantation into the leptin deficient mice. So we can treat those mice with stem cells. In the long-term we want to translate that treatment to our leptin deficient humans. These patients are being treated with an injection every day. The drug is given free of charge by a company in the United States. They cannot guarantee permanent supplies. So we want to develop a permanent treatment for these patients with stem cells therapy. So if everything works out well, we will be transplanting stem cells into these humans. The stem cells will become normal at post-tissue. That will produce normal leptin and then they will no longer require leptin for surviving.