Christin Carter-Su is recognized internationally for her landmark studies relevant to diseases and syndromes including short stature, metabolic syndrome, childhood obesity, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.
She will explore those studies in her inaugural lecture as Anita H. Payne Distinguished University Professor of Physiology, “In Praise of Signal Transduction: Discovery of Pathways Affecting Growth, Obesity and Cancer.”
Distinguished University Professor is the highest professorial title granted at U-M. Carter-Su’s lecture is at 4 p.m. April 6 in Rackham Amphitheater.
“I was surprised and thrilled to be named a Distinguished University Professor. It was an unexpected honor for me and also for the past and present members of my lab who did much of the work being recognized,” Carter-Su says. She said the professorship honors a treasured and greatly accomplished friend and U-M colleague “who was a terrific mentor to me and many other women faculty at the Medical School.”
A leader in endocrinology and metabolism research, Carter-Su has enhanced scientists’ understanding of how molecules, cells and organs interact. She is known for significant studies regarding growth hormone receptor function and signal transduction pathways in cells.
The ability to correctly coordinate biochemical signaling events is essential for life, Carter-Su says. Signal transfer happens when a hormone binds to a specific receptor protein and triggers a biochemical chain of signaling events inside the cell. Her studies have explored how growth hormone initiates cellular responses that ultimately result in a coordinated increase in body growth, and altered fat and carbohydrate metabolism.
She says that by asking the simple question of how growth hormones act at the cellular and molecular level, proteins have been identified that regulate not just height, but also play critical roles in body weight regulation and multiple cancers.
Named a Distinguished University Professor in 2013, Carter-Su has shared her findings in some 130 articles, invited papers, monographs and book chapters.
In addition to her primary appointment in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, she holds a joint appointment in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Diabetes, Department of Internal Medicine. She also serves as the associate director of the National Institutes of Health-funded Michigan Diabetes Research Center.
Carter-Su has been recognized with U-M’s Sarah Goddard Power Award and the American Physiological Society’s Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award. She was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012.
She has also received the Pediatric Endocrine Society’s Eli Lilly Lectureship, the Roy O. Greep Lecture Award from the Endocrine Society, and U-M’s Rackham Faculty Recognition Award, Rackham Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, and Distinguished Faculty Lectureship Award in Biomedical Research.
Carter-Su also is recognized as an exemplary educator. She has taught cell physiology and endocrinology in various contexts since joining U-M in 1981.
