Principal Investigator (Scientist)
University of Ottawa Heart Institute
University of Ottawa/University of Ottawa Heart Institute
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Erin Mulvihill is a scientist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Mulvihill developed expertise in lipid biology and lipoprotein metabolism completing her Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario with Dr. Murray Huff and gut hormones, dipeptidyl peptidase 4 biology and cardiovascular disease while pursuing post-doctoral research under the mentorship of Dr. Daniel Drucker at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute. The Mulvihill Lab studies the actions and regulation of the bioactivity of islet and gut hormones. The lab assesses and carefully measures glucose and lipid metabolism aspects in the context of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Her research program generates and utilizes novel mouse models and experimental models of diabetes and obesity to delineate hormone action mechanisms of direct clinical translational relevance. She has received a CIHR New Investigator Award, Heart and Stroke National New Investigator Award, Diabetes Canada New Investigator Award, Faculty of Medicine Awards of Excellence Early Career Biomedical Researcher and the CLVS Stewart Whitman New Investigator Award. She has also received the CIRTN Mentorship Award. Her lab is currently funded by CIHR, NSERC, CFI, Heart and Stroke Foundation and Diabetes Canada
She has published over 70 papers in journals including Cell Metabolism, Nature Medicine and Diabetes. She performed molecular assessment of how DPP4 inhibitors lower blood glucose and reduce intestinal lipoprotein secretion(Cell Metabolism 2017, Cell Metabolism 2019, Diabetes 2015, JCI insight 2021). She has contributed to deciphering the mechanisms of GLP-1R agonist action (Panjwani et al., Endocrinology 2013). She elucidated the importance of Glp1r within cellular domains targeted by expression of Wnt1-Cre2 or Phox2b-Cre to control food intake, weight loss and lipoprotein secretion in response to GLP-1R agonists (Varin et al., Cell Reports 2019). Her independent group identified that β-cell incretin receptor signaling is required to mediate the beneficial effects of DPP4 inhibitors on glucose homeostasis. However, DPP4 within the islet does not have a role in regulating the bioactivity of GLP-1 (IScience 2023) but liver-derived DPP4 regulates GLP-1 bioactivity in the portal circulation (JCI Insight, 2023).
Disclosure(s): I do not have a relationship with a for-profit and/or a not-for-profit organization to disclose