Dorothy (Dody) Sears

Dr. Sears earned a B.S. at the University of Southern California and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology & Genetics at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is currently Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of California, San Diego. The focus areas of her research are insulin resistance, breast cancer, and type 2 diabetes using human, rodent, and cellular models. Dr. Sears uses a variety of analytical approaches. 1) Systems Biology – the integration of large biological datasets derived from multiple tissue types to identify which and how physiological pathways that are altered in disease and after therapeutic intervention. 2) Analysis of single genes that affect insulin sensitivity in rodent models. 3) Analysis of gene expression and signal transduction related to metabolic regulation. Her systems biology research efforts include the generation of large transcriptomic, genomic, metabolomic, proteomic and lipidomic data sets and the analysis of these data sets independently and as network overlays using bioinformatic pathway tools. Dr. Sears aims to identify and characterize genes and metabolites that are regulators and/or biomarkers of insulin resistance and which can be used as novel therapeutic targets or diagnostic tools. Dr. Sears is a Bioinformatics & Systems Biology Graduate Program faculty member in the UCSD Department of Bioengineering. Outside UCSD, she is President of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) San Diego Chapter and President of the American Diabetes Association San Diego Area Community Leadership Board.