SERVICES“ Lipid Solutions”
 Prof. Alicia Leikin-Frenkel “Lipid Solutions” covering:
1. Expert support for questions on: lipid metabolism, isolation, identification and quantitation of lipids in different species and different matrixes.
2. Guidance to discover the pathway to physiological and biochemical implications following overexpressed or suppressed gene linked to lipids.
3. Counseling to analyze lipids in:
• Simple molecules: fatty acids: Saturated, Monounsaturated n7, n9, Polyunsaturated: n-3, n-6
• Complex molecules: glycerides (mono, di, tri),phospholipids, sphingolipids, cholesterol esters
• Fatty Acid Metabolism, including SCD1, FADS2, etc. 
• Membranes, vesicles, liposomes,etc.
4. Guidelines to chromatographic techniques: GC and TLC.
5. Strategic ideas for designing:
• Whole animal, plant, algal and cell culture  models for the study of lipids
• The study of nutritional lipids  in health and disease
6. An animal model for the Design of long term Health or Disease based on the regulation of   Perinatal Fatty acids Nutrition. The model allows to investigate environmental factors during intrauterine development and its consequences for health and disease in the offspring, from birth to adult life. Depending on the predominant fatty acids in the maternal diet the new born are prone to or protected from metabolic disease. The model is an experimental tool to study epigenetics of early origins of cardio metabolic and neural diseases, cancer, etc. as well as for the assessment of developmental drugs.

ANIMAL MODELS
Animal model for Designing long term Health or Disease by regulating Perinatal Fatty acids Nutrition
Fatty acids are more than energy and essential fatty acids: they regulate gene expression, protein function and generate signal molecules that regulate appetite, energy balance and inflammation. Moreover, they are integral components of membrane phospholipids. The n-6, n-3 and monounsaturated fatty acids transferred across the placenta and in mother’s milk are variable and depend on the mother’s dietary quality, beyond its quantity.  Nutrient deficiencies and excesses during development can reprogram how cells divide, differentiate and respond to their hormone and nutrient environment: these effects can be long-lasting and increase risk of later chronic and other diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, cancer, Alzheimer etc.  Biological pathways and experimental data link saturated fatty acids on one side and imbalance between n-6 linoleic acid and n-3 alpha linolenic acid on the other to the induction of epigenetic modifications and re-programming of gene expression, metabolic and regulatory pathways.
The need: There is a lack of good models to address studies of environmental factors during pregnancy and their impact on the programming of disease in humans.
Our improvement: In this mice model differential   dietary  fatty acids quality-not quantity- are fed to dames during pregnancy ,the new born are consequently either prone to or protected from metabolic disease ,which can be detected early, at birth and phenotype and epi/genotype outcomes can be investigated.
Applications:
• The model permits to assess Health /Disease status of the offspring at initial points of growth, at birth and at adult life.
• The model allows studying the early environmental effect on the developmental origins of metabolic diseases, as well as on aging and brain alterations at molecular and functional level in different tissues at different time points.
• The model can be used as an experimental tool for testing therapeutic drugs and other agents to prevent disease at early stages of development.
• The model provides an ideal setting for designing Nutrigenetic therapies.

Contact: Prof. Alicia Leikin-Frenkel, PhD
leikinb@bezeqint.net;
alicial@tauex.tau.ac.il
Mobile: 054-5301475