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• Supported by the Midi-Pyrenees Regional Council, the annual Pierre de Fermat Research Chairs are intended to host very high level foreign researchers, around a project within a team of a higher education and/or research organisation of Midi-Pyrenees.
• This year, among the winners, Walter Wahli, a recognized molecular endocrinology specialist, who studies hormonal disturbances of the energy balance of cells, which can lead to metabolic diseases such as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
• Understanding of the regulation of hepatic metabolism is a fundamental issue, particularly for research in the fields of food toxicology and nutrition.

In continuation of projects already initiated, Walter Wahli will work for 2 years in collaboration with the research team headed by Herve Guillou (TIM), on the role of activated peroxisome proliferator receptors (PPARs), which control some genes with hepatic activity crucial for cell survival. In particular, these receptors are responsive to metabolites of nutrients (including lipids) and xenobiotics (such as drugs and food contaminants).

The expected results will provide new fundamental knowledge on the role of PPARs in the liver, their gene targets and their physiological importance in vivo. In the longer term, this project will highlight whether the liver is the organ to focus in research on nutrients that may affect the development of certain metabolic diseases related to the obesity epidemic. In parallel, this work will also assess the possible influence of the intestinal microbiota on liver functions and its consequences on the animal's physiology.