News

September 2024

For many years, we noticed that many PGC-1alpha antibodies are used without validation. In our experience, many are not specific or lack sensitivity to detect endogenous protein. To help the research community, we tested multiple commercially available antibodies for PGC-1a in Western blotting, using both knockout and over-expression models. This is what we discovered: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39247789/

April 2024

I am often asked whether mice are good models of human MASLD, which model is the best to use, and how we can improve the translatability of pre-clinical MASLD models. Here is my opinion: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iusW3jDgWq34e

April 2024

What an amazing annual BIIC meeting in NYC this year! Islet biologists from along the northeastern coast of North America gathered in Manhattan, NY to share great, new science, ideas, food, and entertainment.

March 2024

Clémence gave a great talk at the recent MASH Keystone Symposia in Banff, AB. She talked about her recent PhD work looking at the role of sgp130 MASLD/MASH pathogenesis.

February 2024

Had an amazing visit with old and new friends at the University of Kansas! And, I got to try real BBQ for the first time ever. So much meat….

September 2023

Check out our new paper describing a mechanistic link between diabetes and steatotic liver disease, involving IL-6 trans-signaling!

IL-6 trans-signaling is increased in diabetes, impacted by glucolipotoxicity and associated with liver stiffness and fibrosis in fatty liver disease

There was even some press about it: http://CTV News Montreal

April 2023

Clémence was just awarded the FRQS Doctoral Scholarship!! Great month for the Estall lab!

Maria was just awarded the CIHR Doctoral Scholarship!!

April 2023

Congratulations to Laure and James for each winning second place for your category in the IRCM’s SciencePOP competition this Spring! Super proud of both of you for your awesome presentations, communicating your love of science to the public.

February 2023

Congratulations to James and Maria for presenting a poster and an oral presentation at the CMDO conference in Magog!

November 2022

Congratulations to Laure and Maria for presenting their poster at the Diabetes Canada/ CSEM professional conference in Calgary! 🎉

September 2022

They’re on a roll! Congratulations to Clémence for winning the Bourse d’excellence J.A. DeSeve from the University of Montreal.

August 2022

Having a great time at Arbre Mirabel during a lab retreat! 🌳🍖🍺

July 2022

Congratulations to Laure, Maria and James for all being awarded prestigious FRQS scholarships to support their research for the years to come! Maria and James both received doctoral awards, and Laure received a post-doctoral fellowship.

June 2022

March 2022

Congratulations to James for winning second place in the “My thesis in 180 seconds” competition at the University of Montreal! Not an easy task to explain a 5-year project in 3 minutes.

January 2022

To start off the new year, our lab has discovered new circulating biomarkers of fatty liver disease (NASH) in patients! These proteins (sIL-6R and sgp130), which increase in the blood when your liver is unhealthy, might be an easier way to detect and monitor this relatively “silent” but harmful metabolic disease. Check out our pre-print here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.10.22268968

November 2021

October 2021

This year, my amazing lab team (The Anti-Diabetic Agents) raised a whopping $10,971 for the IRCM Challenge!! Thank you to everyone involved in this tremendous effort.

September 2021

Congratulations to Clémence and Maria for being awarded a Doctoral Merit Scholarship from the Faculty of Medicine of the Université de Montréal!🎉

Also, congratulations to Maria who successfully fast-tracked from a MSc to a PhD degree!

August 2021

As a team, our lab is once again raising money for student scholarships and research funding at our institute. In October, we are walking, running and biking to help fund research in diabetes. If you would like to support us, you can use this link.

July 2021

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February 2021

Ever think of using the Tet-On/Off system in beta cells? Have a look at our recent pre-print by lead authour Dr. Nathalie Jouvet when designing your experiments. 

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October 2020

We completed the IRCM Challenge virtually this year, raising over $1800 for research at the institute!

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September 2020

Excited to share a new study we published comparing the pros and cons of common rodent diets when trying to model NAFLD. Congrats to my talented team, led by student Hannah Zhang!

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July 2020

We are searching for a Canadian post-doctoral fellow interesting in liver/beta-cell cross-talk and molecular changes that occur in the early stages of diabetes. Start date: as soon as possible. Check out the Available Positions page for more details on how to apply.

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April 2020

Our paper looking at the link between PGC-1alpha and inflammatory signaling in hepatocytes is out in Molecular Metabolism! A new function for a short form of the canonical protein. 

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April 2020

Times have changed considerably and we are adapting day-by-day to the challenges posed by Covid-19. Currently, our lab is closed. We are looking forward to the time when we can restart our research on metabolic disease.

In the meantime, I want to commend the dedicated members of my lab who are remaining strong through this crisis. We will get through this together.

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March 2020

A huge congratulations to Dr. Mélissa Léveillé, who successfully defended her doctoral thesis on March 25th! She did an amazing job at her virtual defence, one of only many challenges Mélissa faced during her PhD training. We are all so proud!!

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February 2020

Congratulations to Hannah Zhang for winning best Pitch Talk at the MDRC Annual Scientific Day. Also many thanks to Diabetes Quebec for funding our lab to create a new mouse model to study beta cell function!

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November 2019

Congratulations to Mélissa Léveillé for receiving the Montreal Diabetes Research Centre Travel Award, and Hannah Zhang for receiving the Graduate Research Enhancement & Travel (GREAT) Award from McGill and the Keystone Symposia Future of Science Fund scholarship! They will be attending the Keystone meeting on Obesity and NAFLD: Mechanisms and Therapeutics in Banff in February 2020!

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September 2019

Are you a BSc or MSc student looking for a place to continue your studies? Click here to find out more about available positions in our lab and how to apply. Would you like to try out the lab beforehand? Eligible students can apply  for a paid winter, spring or summer internship prior to starting the degree program.

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July 2019

We are trying preprints for the first time. Check out our new work available on BioRxiv about PGC-1A4 – this was an amazing group effort by many lab members over many years. 10 years in the making, many collaborations and lots of minds working together.

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June 2019

Another successful retreat for the IRCM at Estrimont this year. My lab
sweeped the competition by winning 3 prizes for best posters and oral presentations. Congrats to Emilie, Philipa and Mélissa for their wins! Can you spot us all in the picture?

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May 2019

May was a busy month! We were lucky to have some press coverage of our recent work in the media – seems we have a lot more to learn about the role of glucagon in the control of blood glucose. (RadioCanada)

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May 2019

I was honoured to be invited to speak at this year’s Pint-Of-Science in Montreal. It was a great night and a fun venue. I recommend these events to anyone who wants to find out what scientists do, ask questions about their work, and simply to have a pint with cool people.

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May 2019

Thank you to all the generous donors who supported our team in the IRCM Challenge!  We raised $2850 this year and braved the cold, rainy weather to all finish the race. Well done Anti-Diabetic Agents!!

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April 2019

Congratulations to Hannah Zhang, an undergrad trainee in my lab who was just awarded the prestigious CGS – Master’s Award for her graduate work in our lab, starting in the Fall – wish her luck!

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March 2019

An interesting article in La Presse+ discussing our recent discovery linking PGC-1A and hepatic insulin signaling. Encouraging words that we should think about glucagon (and PGC-1alpha) differently in the context of diabetes.

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February 2019

The Estall Lab was excited to be a part of the A-BC Islet Workshop this year in snowy Kelowna, BC! Great 2 days of science and networking (and my bowling score improved 10-fold over last year).

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February 2019

Hot off the press! We just published a paper in PNAS showing that PGC-1 in liver is important for regulating blood glucose levels, in more ways than expected. Seems PGC-1alpha, downstream of glucagon, controls the IRS1:IRS2 ratio to help insulin to shut down hepatic glucose output right after a meal.

Check out the work by our team here: PGC1A regulates the IRS1:IRS2 ratio during fasting to influence hepatic metabolism downstream of insulin.

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February 2019

Look who won prizes for best poster at the MDRC Annual Retreat!! Congratulations to Philipa (MSc student) and Stewart (Post-Doc). As per tradition, drinks were on them that night…

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February 2019

Mélissa gearing up for her “Pitch Talk” at the MDRC annual Retreat on whether we should care about PGC-1alpha levels in liver cancer linked to obesity. She did a great job convincing us we should!

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January 2019

Happy New Year everyone!  To escape the wintery weather, we had our first ever lab curling event. Although we were all rookies, we were surprisingly good!

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September 2018

Congratulations Philipa for being awarded the JA DeSeve Excellence Scholarship from the FESP!

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September 2018

A warm welcome to Yeliz Yilmaz (an exchange PhD student) and Dr. Aysim Gunes (a post-doctoral fellow) from Turkey (Dokuz Eylül University), both coming to learn the metabolic side of liver cancer linked to obesity. We are also looking forward to learning about cellular mechanisms of liver cancer from them, in collaboration with Drs. Nese Atabey and Mehmet Ozturk.

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August 2018

Congratulations to our own Dr. Stewart Jeromson for being awarded a prestigious Post-doc Fellowship from Diabetes Canada. Well-deserved!  And many thanks to Diabetes Canada for their continued support of our research.

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July 2018

In an article published in Montréal InVivo, Philipa talks about her unconventional start in Molecular Biology and how that path led her to our lab as a graduate student!

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June 2018

Thanks to pioneering work done by the Larose Lab, we are now embarking on understanding whether Nck proteins can or should be targeted to treat diabetes. Here is the first published work on this – a collaborative effort opening a new chapter in the Estall Lab.

Peptide-based sequestration of the adaptor protein Nck1 in pancreatic beta cells enhances insulin biogenesis against diabetogenic stresses.

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April 2018

Congratulations to the now Dr. Aurèle Besse-Patin, who successfully defended his PhD and passed with flying colours!

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April 2018

Woohoo!  Philipa has won a Master’s scholarship from the MDRC for her work on hepatokines secreted from fatty liver.

Congratulations!

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February 2018

It was great to catch up with the Canadian (and the token brit) beta cell experts at the A-BC Islet Workshop in Kelowna, BC. I learned many new things (and confirmed that bowling is not my forté).

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February 2018

Another great MDRC Retreat highlights work from the diabetes research network in Quebec and surrounding areas. And congratulations to Mélissa from our lab for taking home a prize for best poster! 

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January 2018

We’ve had a busy winter! Hope you had a chance to see Philipa give her talk at the recent Organ Crosstalk in Obesity and NAFLD Keystone meeting in Colorado. If not, stay tuned for more about liver hepatokines and diabetes in the future from the Estall Lab.

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December 2017

Ever wonder if mutations of PGC-1α are linked to metabolic disease and why? Read our paper reviewing the basic and clinical research on one particular mutation and diabetes. Thanks to Roxy and Naveen for the hard work putting it together!

Linking Metabolic Disease with the PGC-1αGly482Ser polymorphism

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November 2017

Many thanks to the CIHR and the IDRC for funding our international, collaborative project with Drs. Eithan Galun (Israel) and Mehmet Ozturk (Turkey) on NASH-related HCC.

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November 2017

Wearing blue to raise awareness to Diabetes Awareness Month! World Diabetes day is on November 14. Diabetes affects millions of people worldwide, and many don’t even know it yet!

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August 2017

Congratulations to Stewart Jeromson for obtaining a post-doctoral fellowship from the IRCM! Now you only have to successfully defend your PhD in a few weeks to get it – No pressure 🙂

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July 2017

Another travel award for Aurèle Besse-Patin for his work on sex and NASH! Thanks to the MDRC for their continued support for own lab.

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June 2017

We sometimes get out to rest too, trust me 🙂 After a good afternoon of team building in escape rooms, we got to chill by a roof-top pool before going out.

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June 2017

And she’s back! We somehow convinced Philipa Levesque-Damphousse to return after her internship last summer to complete her Master’s degree. Welcome back to our team and looking forward to seeing her projects develop on novel hepatokines in diabetes.

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May 2017

My students are on fire this year! Both Roxy and Aurèle won prizes for best poster and oral presentations at IRCM research day.

Drinks were definitely on them that night 🙂

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May 2017

Congratulations to my amazing lab team, The Anti-Diabetic Agents, for raising $2163 for the IRCM challenge run this year! It was a great day and the rain held off just long enough for us to enjoy it 🙂  Very proud of all my current (and future) team members who participated, completing the race pushing carriages, wearing costumes, and on sprained ankles!

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April 2017

I’m proud to report that Mélissa Léveillé is now an FRQS-funded PhD Scholar! Amazing accomplishment for a great student! 

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April 2017

Roxy took the stage at the Boston/Ithica Islet Club meeting in New Haven, Connecticut to represent our lab and present her Master’s project.  She did an awesome job!

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March 2017

Is nutrient metabolism in the cells of the pancreas important for whole body energy homeostasis? Of course! Check out Nathalie’s review highlighting current breakthroughs in this area.

The pancreas: Bandmaster of glucose homeostasis.

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March 2017

And here he is in full force representing the Estall Lab in Lake Tahoe. We heard a lot about sex at this meeting!

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March 2017

Hope to see you all at the Keystone Symposia: Sex and Gender Factors Affecting Metabolic Homeostasis, Diabetes and
Obesity
March 19 – 22, 2017 | Tahoe City, California, USA

Congrats also to Aurèle for the scholarship to present his work!
“Estrogen signals through PGC-1α to reduce oxidative stress associated with diet-induced fatty liver disease”. His talk is Tuesday, March 21st at 2:30pm!

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February 2017

Presentation/Poster winners at the Annual MDRC Retreat. Look who’s standing at the right-hand side. Congrats Aurèle!

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January 2017

Congratulations to Roxy for winning a travel award from McGill for the Keystone meeting! She represented the lab well and stimulated lots of interesting discussion about the biology of a diabetes-related SNP.

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January 2017

Be sure to chat with Roxy Vandenbeek in Colorado, representing our lab at Keystone Symposia: Diabetes, from January 22 – January 26, 2017.

Poster #: 3021
The molecular basis of increased diabetes susceptibility in carriers of the PGC-1α (Ser482) risk allele

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January 2017

A big welcome to Stewart Jeromson, our new post-doc coming from across the pond (University of Stirling, Scotland). Hopefully the Canadian winter will treat him well!

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December 2016

Cool blog talking about the importance of including females in biomedical research (including a quote from yours truly)!

Parce qu’on est en 2016…..

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December 2016

Very proud to have our own Aurèle Besse Patin win the IRCM Prix D’Excellence (André Barbeau)  = Best Student of the YEAR!

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November 2016

Mélissa gets yet another scholarship from the University of Montreal!  Soon she will make more than me 🙂

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September 2016

Our comments on why mice are such amazing metabolic creatures.
Do mouse beta cells resist aging??

Searching for the β-Cell Fountain of Youth. 

Jouvet N, Estall JL. Endocrinology 2016

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September 2016

Fresh off the press! Estrogen’s ability to protect against oxidative stress in mouse liver caused by high fat/sugar diets requires PGC-1alpha – And, you may carry a gene variant that decreases its expression! Read all about it in our recently published paper in Gastroenterology.

Estrogen Signals through PPARG coactivator 1 alpha to Reduce Oxidative Damage Associated with Diet-induced Fatty Liver Disease

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August 2016

Many congrats to Roxy for winning the Ethelwyn and Ernie Nyman Bursary from McGill University! The first of many accolades to come.

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August 2016

Aurèle was on the radio talking about our latest projects to look at the effect of sex on metabolic disease and the drugs to treat it (Radio-Canada: Les Années lumière).

Les oubliées de la recherche – Reportage de Marianne Desautels-Marissal

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July 2016

Importance of comparing both sexes in research on metabolic disease! We are missing a lot….

Article in the Montreal Metro about our research to look at this with FGF21 discusses some concerning issues. Funded by a Catalyst grant from the CIHR!

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July 2016

A big thanks to Diabetes Quebec for their continued support of our lab. A new research grant to support our work on genetic influences on diabetes risk

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June 2-3, 2016

My lab at the 2016 IRCM Forum – Great meeting and love the new format!

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May, 2016

Mélissa is on a role! A PhD scholarship from Diabetes Québec and Best Poster Prize at the Journée Scientifique de Biologie Moléculaire, UdeM!! Many congratulations!!

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May 7, 2016

UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of all of you, our team raised $1,825 for the 2016 IRCM Challenge Run on Mont Royal. Our team also won the trophy for the most money raised per team member!!

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May, 2016

Please support our lab team, The Anti-Diabetic Agents, in our run to further biomedical research at the IRCM! Click here to make a donation, which goes directly to student training and disease research.

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April, 2016

Congratulations to Mélissa for obtaining a competitive PhD scholarship from the Montreal Diabetes Research Centre!

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March, 2016

Met great colleagues and collaborators (old and new) at the Keystone Symposia: Islet Biology from Cell Birth to Death in Keystone, CO

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February, 2016

Another successful Annual MDRC Retreat! Can you spot my lab?

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February, 2016

Another conference for Melissa!  Come visit and chat with her at the upcoming Keystone Symposia: New Frontiers in Understanding Tumor Metabolism (Feb 21-25, 2016 Banff, Alberta)

Poster: The Role of PGC-1α in NAFLD-associated Liver Cancer

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February, 2016

February was a busy month! Lots of conference presentations from my trainees:

Réunion Annuelle de la SQLNM, du CMDO et de COLosSUS

Speaker: Mélissa Léveillé
Title: The role of PGC-1alpha in NAFLD-associated liver cancer Session I: Complications hépatiques de l’obésité When: Wednesday February 10, 9h45
Poster was also at CCWD 2016:  Sunday
February 28, 18h-19h30

Speaker: Aurèle Besse-Patin
Title: Reduced hepatic PGC-1α leads to oxidative stress and worsened NAFLD progression Symposium II: Cardiomyopathie métabolique: la nouvelle face des maladies cardiovasculaires
When: Thursday February 11, 15

Canadian Digestive Diseases Week (CDDW 2016)

Speaker: Aurèle Besse-Patin
Title: Reduced hepatic PGC-1α leads to oxidative stress and worsened NAFLD progression
When: Sunday February 28, 9h00-10h30
Poster was also at Réunion Annuelle de la SQLNM, du CMDO et de COLosSU

Speaker: Dr. Cristina Bosoi (presenting work from her PhD with Dr. Chris Rose, CRCHUM)
Title: Ornithine phenylacetate attenuates loss of muscle mass and improves hepatic encephalopathy in bile-duct ligated rats 
When: Saturday February 27, 8h30-10h00

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November, 2015

Really nice commentary about our Diabetes paper in the current issue. Human Growth Hormone in Transgenesis: A growing problem?

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October, 2015

Congratulations to Aurèle and Mélissa for their continued success in competitions for University of Montréal scholarships!  Keep up the great work.

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September, 2015

An official welcome to our new graduate student, Roxanne (Roxy) Vandenbeek! Although if you look carefully, she somehow found her way into the boat during our summer rafting trip.

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August, 2015

We are happy to report that Daniel’s discovery of the role of PGC-1 co-activators in beta-cells has been published in Molecular
Metabolism! Nicely done, congrats to all and special thanks to all our collaborators.

PGC-1 coactivators regulate lipid metabolism in beta-cells and are essential for insulin secretion coupled to fatty acids

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August, 2015

Taking a much needed break from bench (and paper) work on the Rouge River.

#LabOuting2015

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July 2015

Our discovery of STZ-resistance and hGH expression in the MIP-creERT mouse line was just published in Diabetes! Thanks to Daniel and Nathalie for the amazing effort.

Phenotypic characterization of MIP-CreERT1Lphi mice with transgene-driven islet expression of human growth hormone

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July 2015

Confused as to which Cre-driver to use for beta-cell research? Two new lines published in Endocrinology look promising. Check out our editorial on the subject.

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June 5-9, 2015

Great poster session at the ADA Scientific Sessions 2015 in Boston, MA with Nathalie at the helm.

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June, 2015

Make your voice heard!  Join the discussion on recent changes to scientific funding in Canada – The more scientists they hear from, the better chance we have to come up with a plan for action.

The Future of Canadian Science

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May 9, 2015

Give a shout out to our lab (“The Anti-Diabetic Agents”) who raised over $2,800 for the IRCM Challenge Run this year.

Also, congratulations to Aurèle for winning the bronze medal in the 10 km race!

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May, 2015

Congratulations to Mélissa for renewing her PhD scholarship from UdeM!

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June 5-9, 2015

Come visit us during our late-breaking poster (LB-330) presentation at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Scientific Sessions in Boston, MA.

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April, 2015

Many congrats to Dr. Cristina Bosoi, our new post-doc, for obtaining the prestigious FRQS postdoctoral fellowship award!

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April, 2015

Congratulations to Dr. Nathalie Jouvet for her Post-doc fellowship from the MDRC!

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March, 2015