Guiding grocery carts to shape healthy habits
In a world of processed foods, a person could spend hours in a grocery store staring at confusing labels while trying to select the healthiest bread. But, imagine how easy grocery shopping would be if you could consult a personal dietician right there in the store.
Matching dieticians and shoppers at risk for cardiovascular disease is just one of the innovative clinical trials Robert “Nate” Helsley has managed. After growing up in rural Ohio and earning a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences at the University of Kentucky, Helsley said he understands how difficult it can be to choose healthy foods.
“Many of the issues are related to convenience and education,” he said. “For example, many people do not know how to appropriately read food labels … So, this was an opportunity to address those issues on the front line. That’s why I was excited about the job.”
After managing clinical trials for a few years, Helsley decided to return to the bench to help improve human health from the ground up.
Now an assistant professor of medicine at the UK College of Medicine, he works to identify the mechanisms that link nutrient metabolism to the development of cardiometabolic diseases. For this work, he won the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s 2025 Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator Award in Lipids, which recognizes outstanding lipid research by a young investigator.
Helsley said that his early work on clinical trials motivated his research to find therapeutics for diseases such as obesity, heart disease and liver cancer.
“There are still fundamental issues with how we treat obesity, which includes education, … accessibility of resources and healthy food options,” he said. “Seeing how dieticians could help these people really opened my eyes.”
Leveraging lipid levels to starve liver cancer
Robert “Nate” Helsley takes a nontraditional research approach: He first identifies a disease and then develops translational models to find potential therapeutics. His lab focuses on diseases of the liver. Metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD, and metabolic dysfunction–associated steatohepatitis, or MASH, are two of the most common. Only one drug has been approved to treat these conditions, so researchers are pushing to find more and better treatments.
“Understanding how MASLD and MASH can progress to liver cancer is a huge need, especially over the next 15 to 20 years,” Helsley said.
Using human liver tissue samples, Helsley examined lipid levels in the tumor and in matched, nontumor samples. He found that monounsaturated fatty acids, made by the enzyme stearoyl-CoA desaturase, or SCD, accumulate in tumor tissue.
Other researchers are exploring SCD inhibitors as a therapeutic option, but Helsley wants to attack the pathway from the opposite end. His target: CPT1A, the enzyme responsible for breaking down, or oxidizing, monounsaturated fatty acids. His lab found that the CPT1A pathway shuts down in human liver tumors, allowing monosaturated fatty acids, the tumor’s food source, to build up.
Helsley’s plan is to deplete these fatty acids and starve the tumor.
“When the capacity to oxidize monounsaturated fatty acids is turned off, they build up,” Helsley said. “It’s like yin and yang. … If we can figure out a way to exploit that pathway and turn it on, we think we could further prevent tumor growth.”
Helsley will give a talk at the 2025 ASBMB Annual Meeting, April 12–15 in Chicago, titled “The contribution of fatty acid oxidation to diet-induced hepatocellular carcinoma.”
ASBMB 2025 award winners
Read profiles of all the society’s 2025 honorees who will receive their awards and give talks at the ASBMB Annual Meeting, April 12–15 in Chicago.
From receptor research to cancer drug development: The impact of RTKs
Joseph Schlessinger receives the ASBMB Herbert Tabor Research Award.
Computational and biophysical approaches to disordered proteins
Rohit Pappu receives the DeLano Award for Computational Biosciences.
Leading the charge for gender equity
Nicole Woitowich receives the ASBMB Emerging Leadership Award.
Helping underrepresented scientists feel seen
Benjamin Garcia receives the ASBMB Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award.
Transforming learning through innovation and collaboration
Neena Grover receives the William C. Rose Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education.
Curiosity turned a dietitian into a lipid scientist
Judy Storch receives the Avanti Award in Lipids.
Elucidating how chemotherapy induces neurotoxicity
Andre Nussenzweig receives the Bert and Natalie Vallee Award.
What seems dead may not be dead
Vincent Tagliabracci receives the Earl and Thressa Stadtman Distinguished Scientist Award.
'You can't afford to be 15 years behind the parasite'
David Fidock receives the Alice and C.C. Wang Award in Molecular Parasitology.
Guiding grocery carts to shape healthy habits
Robert Helsley receives the Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator in Lipid Research Award.
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