Rate My Professor Mikhail Kolonin

Mikhail Kolonin, PhD, serves as Professor and Director of the Center for Metabolic and Degenerative Diseases at the Institute for Molecular Medicine, McGovern Medical School, at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He holds the Harry E. Bovay, Jr. Distinguished University Chair in Metabolic Disease Research. Kolonin obtained his PhD in molecular medicine from Wayne State University School of Medicine in 2000. During his postdoctoral fellowship at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, he screened combinatorial peptide libraries in mice and cancer patients to identify tissue-specific cell surface markers pursued as drug targets. He pioneered in vivo expression of peptides designed to disrupt protein interactions and developed phage display technologies for vascular mapping. Joining UTHealth Houston, he advanced to a tenured professorship, directing research on adipose stromal cells (ASCs) and their roles in pathology.

Kolonin's laboratory investigates the multifaceted roles of stromal cells from adipose tissue in healthy metabolism and diseases including obesity, type-2 diabetes, muscle degeneration, cancer, and aging. His group examines adipocyte heterogeneity, fatty acid transport in diabetes and cancer, ASC recruitment in chronic diseases contributing to chemoresistance, metastasis, and fibrosis, and replicative senescence in stem cells linked to neurological and muscular dysfunction. They developed telomerase-deficient mouse models demonstrating senescence-induced vascular leakiness, tissue hypoxia, cognitive impairment, reduced muscle endurance, and metabolic abnormalities independent of telomere attrition, revealing dysfunctional mitochondria and glycolytic dependence. Recent studies elucidate GLP1 receptor agonist mechanisms, including transient IL-6 signaling on perivascular cells and adipocytes for adipose thermogenesis and anti-diabetic effects. Kolonin has invented experimental therapeutics such as ASC-targeted ablation reversing obesity in mice and peptides for metastatic cancer detection, imaging, and therapy. Notable publications include "A framework for advancing our understanding of cancer-associated fibroblasts" (Nature Reviews Cancer, 2020), "Reversal of obesity by targeted ablation of adipose tissue" (Nature Medicine, 2004), "A population of multipotent CD34-positive adipose stromal cells share pericyte and mesenchymal surface markers..." (Circulation Research, 2008), "Steps toward mapping the human vasculature by phage display" (Nature Medicine, 2002), and "Cancer as a matter of fat: the crosstalk between adipose tissue and tumors" (Trends in Cancer, 2018). His research has advanced therapeutic strategies targeting senescent cells and ASC-derived cancer-associated fibroblasts in combination with immunotherapy.