Charles Brenner is the Alfred E Mann Family Foundation Chair in Diabetes and Cancer Metabolism in the Department of Diabetes & Cancer Metabolism. His laboratory focuses on disturbances in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), the central catalyst of metabolism, in diseases and conditions of metabolic stress.

 

Among his most significant discoveries, he identified nicotinamide riboside as an unanticipated vitamin precursor of NAD. He also developed a quantitative metabolomic technology that allowed him to discover that the NAD system is disturbed by many diseases and conditions of metabolic stress including diabetes and cancer.

 

Specifically, Dr. Brenner and colleagues have found that in animal models of fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, diabetic and chemotherapeutic neuropathy, central brain injury, heart failure, postpartum and coronavirus infection, the NAD system is disturbed. In these models, provision of nicotinamide riboside is highly protective.

Dr. Brenner led the team that conducted the first clinical trial of nicotinamide riboside establishing safe oral availability and has participated in trials establishing safety and potential activities of nicotinamide riboside in clearance of liver fat and depression of common markers of inflammation. He continues to research how the NAD system is dysregulated as a function of postpartum, coronavirus infection, inflammatory conditions, diabesity and specific malignancies with the dual goals of defining mechanisms of biological regulation and developing safe preventative and therapeutic interventions for people.

 

At Longevity Med Summit Dr. Brenner will introduce his lecture on NAD Metabolism implication on Aging and Longevity.