Editorial Board Member

Dr. Najjar’s research has delved into the integrated physiology of insulin and lipid metabolism in liver and how it regulates cardiometabolic disease. She is best known for identifying a key role for hepatic insulin clearance in regulating insulin action, and how impaired insulin clearance in liver could cause insulin resistance, obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hypertension and atherosclerosis. She is also known for having pioneered the identification of a negative acute effect of insulin on lipogenesis as opposed to its chronic pro-lipogenic effect. As an authority in metabolism, she has authored more than 12 book chapters and 105 peer-reviewed articles, with several of them in leading medical journals such as Science, Nature Genetics, Cell Metabolism, Gastroenterology, J. Clinical Investigations, Diabetologia, Diabetes, and others. Najjar’s research has been funded by federal agencies, including the NIH (both the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disease–NIDDK and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute–NHLBI), the National Science Foundation, and the American Diabetes Association (ADA). She also mentored several of her trainees in receiving fellowships from ADA and the American Heart Association (AHA).

insulin clearance, insulin metabolism, lipid metabolism, insulin resistance, inflammation, fibrosis, metabolic diseases, abdominal obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, atherosclerosis