Professional Bio
Katie Coate, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is a basic science investigator motivated by a longstanding interest in discovering the physiologic and molecular mechanisms driving the complex pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes (T2D), a heterogeneous metabolic disease characterized by obesity-associated insulin resistance and dysfunctional hormone production and secretion from pancreatic islet alpha and beta cells.
She obtained a doctoral degree in the laboratory of Dr. Alan D. Cherrington at Vanderbilt University where she found that a high-fat and high-sugar diet diminishes the ability of the liver to consume glucose and synthesize glycogen during conditions that mimic the fed state. She then pursued postdoctoral training in the joint laboratory of Drs. David Mangelsdorf and Steve Kliewer at UT Southwestern Medical Center. There, she defined the role of fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) in the pancreas and discovered that FGF21 acts as a digestive enzyme secretagogue and protects pancreatic cells from protein-folding stress. She then joined the faculty at Samford University where she taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in nutrition and metabolism. In 2019, she returned to research and moved to Vanderbilt University where she is a research instructor investigating how pancreatic islet-enriched transcription factors and chronic metabolic stress impact gene regulation and function in adult human islets in vitro and in vivo.
Publications
Education
MS - Nutrition - Auburn University, 2007
PhD - Molecular Physiology & Biophysics - Vanderbilt University, 2011
Fellowship - Howard Hughes Postdoctoral Fellow - University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 2013
Fellowship - Postdoctoral Fellow - University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 2015
Contact
Email
Kimryn.Rathmell@Vumc.Org
Address
777 Preston Research Building
2220 Pierce Ave
Nashville, TN 37232-6307