Perkins Coie Awards $20,000 Grant to Seek New Ways to Normalize Blood Sugar Levels in Type 1 Diabetes

SEATTLE (May 2010) - Perkins Coie announced that it has presented its $20,000 "Award for Discovery" to Gregory J. Morton, Ph.D., research assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and an investigator with the UW Medicine Diabetes and Obesity Center of Excellence. The award will fund his research project "Normalization of Blood Glucose Levels in Uncontrolled Diabetes without Insulin."  

The award is part of the firm's five-year commitment to support translational research at the UW Medicine South Lake Union campus. Each year, from 2007 to 2011, the firm awards a $20,000 grant to support a new project to generate data that could be used as a basis for a new and significant research program funded by NIH or other funding agencies. The award to Dr. Morton is the fourth in this program.

In his grant application, Dr. Morton explained that his research will be based on ground-breaking observations of the brain’s capacity to normalize blood sugar levels in rodents with uncontrolled, insulin-deficient diabetes. He will look at how the fat tissue hormone leptin acts in the brain to decrease glucose production in the liver and increase its utilization in tissues, leading to normal levels of blood sugar.  

“Standard insulin treatment for type 1 diabetes can lead to weight gain and incidents where the blood sugar levels drop too low,” Morton said. “We are looking at the potential of leptin as an adjunct to insulin therapy for type 1 diabetes and to reduce these side effects. But before we consider the possibility of clinical trials, we need to answer fundamental questions about the pathways in the brain and mechanisms in the body that mediate leptin’s glucose-normalizing actions.”

"Perkins Coie is a leading international firm very much engaged in the Seattle community, and Dr. Morton’s research has the potential to discover new therapies to better treat type 1 diabetes, which affects many people in our community and around the world. It is a great partnership," said Dr. John Slattery, vice dean of research and graduate education at the University of Washington School of Medicine.