Katrin Svensson

Katrin Svensson, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine 

Research Description: The overall goal of the Svensson Laboratory is to increase the understanding of how hormones and circulating protein factors regulate energy homeostasis under physiological and pathophysiological conditions. Dr. Svensson’s research program uses an integrated discovery-molecular physiology approach to identify and study orphan hormones involved in regulating energy expenditure and obesity-related disorders such as diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Additionally, she has developed protocols to isolate, characterize and phenotype heterogeneous cell populations from metabolic organs from mice with established metabolic diseases. This approach, when combined with single-cell transcriptomics analyses and CRISPR-mediated gene editing, has allowed her to resolve the cellular landscape during disease progression of fatty liver disease, including the identification of novel transcriptional regulators of de novo lipogenesis. Recently, she has identified circulating proteins with previously unknown functions, and elucidated their role in regulating glucose homeostasis, energy expenditure and insulin resistance. Dr. Svensson's long-term goal is to apply these discoveries toward the development of novel protein therapeutics or biomarkers for metabolic disorders. Dr. Svensson serves as co-leader of the Metabolism and Signaling in Diabetes Research Affinity Group in the SDRC. 

Selected relevant publications (Stanford DRC members are in BOLD):

  1. Jung Y, Zhao M, Svensson KJ. Isolation, culture, and functional analysis of hepatocytes from mice with fatty liver disease. STAR Protoc. 2020 Dec 15;1(3):100222. doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2020.100222. PMID: 33377114; PMCID: PMC7757664. 

  2. Zhao M, Jung Y, Jiang Z, Svensson KJ. Regulation of Energy Metabolism by Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Ligands. Front Physiol. 2020 Apr 21;11:354. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2020.00354. PMID: 32372975; PMCID: PMC7186430. 

  3. Long JZ, Roche AM, Berdan CA, Louie SM, Roberts AJ, Svensson KJ, Dou FY, Bateman LA, Mina AI, Deng Z, Jedrychowski MP, Lin H, Kamenecka TM, Asara JM, Griffin PR, Banks AS, Nomura DK, Spiegelman BM. Ablation of PM20D1 reveals N-acyl amino acid control of metabolism and nociception. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Jul 17;115(29):E6937-E6945. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1803389115. Epub 2018 Jul 2. PMID: 29967167; PMCID: PMC6055169. 

  4. Lin H, Long JZ, Roche AM, Svensson KJ, Dou FY, Chang MR, Strutzenberg T, Ruiz C, Cameron MD, Novick SJ, Berdan CA, Louie SM, Nomura DK, Spiegelman BM, Griffin PR, Kamenecka TM. Discovery of Hydrolysis-Resistant Isoindoline N-Acyl Amino Acid Analogues that Stimulate Mitochondrial Respiration. J Med Chem. 2018 Apr 12;61(7):3224-3230. doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.8b00029. PMID: 29533650; PMCID: PMC6335027.