Bacteria and Phage, Yeast and Dictyostelium, Mouse and Rat, Protein Structure-Function and Protein Folding, Enzymology, Gene Expression and Regulation, Fatty Acids and Lipid Metabolism, Genomic, Proteomics, Metabolomics
Salih J. Wakil revolutionized and laid the foundation for much of what is understood about fatty acid metabolism today. At the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Wakil began work on fatty acid oxidation and helped elucidate the steps by which fatty acids are oxidized. In contrast to the prevailing dogma at the time, he also demonstrated that fatty acids are synthesized and oxidized by two separate pathways. In 1959, he joined the Department of Biochemistry at Duke University. Dr. Wakil's laboratory discovered both Acetyl CoA Carboxylase (ACC) and Fatty Acid Synthetase (FAS), the two key enzymes of fatty acid synthesis. The discovery of the multifunctional FAS enzyme dispelled the long-held concept of one-gene, one-enzyme, one function. Dr. Wakil left Duke in 1971 to become professor and chairman of the Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. At Baylor, he and his colleagues studied the complex structure and regulation of ACC and FAS. In recent years, his interest naturally evolved to developing therapeutics and treatment strategies that could regulate a healthy balance between fat synthesis and fat oxidation.
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Chair Emeritus and Distinguished Service Professor
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