Image: Mattias Pettersson
Research group Our research group focuses on obesity-related diseases and their connection to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. We investigate how increased fat storage affects organs and disease development, with a special emphasis on sphingolipid metabolism and bioactive lipids. Our goal is to identify early risk markers and enable effective preventive measures for these prevalent public health concerns.
Why do some individuals develop type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, while others remain metabolically healthy despite similar risk factors?
At the Chorell Research Lab, we investigate how changes in lipid metabolism contribute to the development and progression of cardiometabolic diseases. Our research has a particular focus on sphingolipids, a diverse family of lipids involved in cellular signalling, membrane organisation and metabolic regulation.
Although sphingolipids are essential components of healthy cells, disturbances in their metabolism have been linked to insulin resistance, pancreatic β-cell dysfunction, atherosclerosis and other complications of diabetes.
Our overall aim is to understand how sphingolipid metabolism changes during metabolic dysfunction, identify circulating lipid signatures that predict disease development, and uncover the molecular mechanisms underlying these associations.
We combine large-scale human population studies and clinical interventions with experimental investigations in human tissues, animal models and cellular systems. Using advanced mass spectrometry-based lipidomics, metabolomics and integrative multi-omics approaches, we connect molecular discoveries to disease mechanisms and clinical outcomes.
Our research is organised into two closely connected areas: biomarker discovery and clinical translation, and mechanistic investigations of sphingolipid metabolism.
Research area 1: Sphingolipid biomarkers and cardiometabolic risk
Discovering molecular signatures of disease development and progression
Cardiometabolic diseases often develop over many years, with molecular disturbances emerging long before clinical symptoms become apparent. Identifying these early changes offers opportunities to improve risk prediction, understand disease progression and develop more individualised prevention strategies.
We investigate whether specific sphingolipid profiles can serve as biomarkers of metabolic dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis and cardiovascular complications.
Our research includes large population-based cohorts, longitudinal biobanks and clinical intervention studies with detailed metabolic phenotyping. Through collaborations involving the Västerbotten Intervention Programme (VIP), VIPVIZA, SCAPIS and the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study (NSHDS), we explore how circulating lipid signatures relate to insulin resistance, glucose regulation, subclinical atherosclerosis and future cardiovascular events.
A central objective is to determine whether sphingolipid signatures provide information beyond established clinical risk factors and whether they can identify individuals at increased risk before disease becomes clinically apparent.
We are particularly interested in:
By integrating high-resolution lipidomics with longitudinal clinical data, we aim to move from associations toward biologically informed biomarkers that can support earlier and more precise identification of cardiometabolic risk.
Research area 2: Molecular mechanisms of sphingolipid metabolism
Understanding how lipid metabolism influences cellular and metabolic function
To understand why particular sphingolipids are associated with disease, we investigate how they are produced, regulated and distributed within tissues and cells, and how these processes affect metabolic function.
Our mechanistic research focuses on sphingolipid metabolism in adipose tissue, skeletal muscle and pancreatic islets, with particular emphasis on insulin resistance, insulin secretion and metabolic adaptation.
An emerging focus of our research is non-canonical sphingolipid metabolism, including the formation of deoxysphingolipids. Unlike conventional sphingolipids, these molecules lack a hydroxyl group that is important for their further metabolism, potentially influencing their biological properties, intracellular distribution and turnover.
We investigate how metabolic substrate availability, including serine metabolism, regulates the balance between canonical and non-canonical sphingolipids, and whether these changes contribute to cellular dysfunction.
Our current research addresses several interconnected questions:
We combine human tissue analyses with experimental models, transcriptomics, lipidomics and functional assays to investigate these mechanisms.
We are also developing chemical biology approaches, including bioorthogonal lipid tracing and click chemistry, to study sphingolipid metabolism, intracellular localisation and molecular interactions under different metabolic conditions.
Our long-term objective is to identify the molecular processes that link altered sphingolipid metabolism to metabolic disease and reveal potential targets for therapeutic intervention.
A central component of our research is the development and application of advanced analytical approaches to characterise lipid metabolism.
Sphingolipids comprise a structurally diverse group of molecules, and even subtle differences in molecular structure can influence their biological properties. Therefore, resolving individual sphingolipid species is essential for understanding their roles in health and disease.
We use and develop mass spectrometry-based methods for both broad lipid profiling and targeted, quantitative analysis, with particular emphasis on molecular and isomer-specific resolution.
Our research integrates:
By combining analytical innovation with biological and clinical investigations, we aim to improve both the molecular understanding and translational applications of sphingolipid research.
The Chorell Research Lab is based at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Sweden.
Our research takes place within a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment connecting clinical medicine, molecular biology, analytical chemistry and computational approaches.
We work closely with the Swedish Metabolomics Centre (SMC), a national research infrastructure within SciLifeLab, contributing to the development and application of advanced mass spectrometry-based lipidomics and metabolomics.
Our research also connects to CEMERAI — the Centre for Modelling Life at the Membrane with AI — an interdisciplinary research initiative integrating membrane biology, lipidomics, structural biology and artificial intelligence.
Through national and international collaborations, we combine access to deeply phenotyped clinical cohorts, advanced analytical platforms and complementary experimental expertise to advance our understanding of sphingolipid metabolism in cardiometabolic disease.
Our ambition is to bridge molecular mechanisms and population-level discoveries, translating sphingolipid research into improved understanding, prediction and ultimately prevention of cardiometabolic disease.
Her goal is to make it possible to detect and slow the progression of type 2 diabetes at an early stage.
The pitches covered cancer and disease modeling and the role of sphingolipids in metabolic diseases.
