Guy A. Rutter
Guy A. Rutter | |
|---|---|
| Born | Guy Allen Rutter |
| Alma mater | University of Nottingham University of Bristol |
| Known for | Research on pancreatic beta-cell biology and insulin secretion |
| Awards | Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) Albert Renold Prize Minkowski Prize Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biochemistry, Cell biology, Endocrinology |
| Institutions | University of Montreal Imperial College London McGill University Nanyang Technological University |
Guy A. Rutter FMedSci is a British biochemist and diabetes researcher known for his work on pancreatic beta-cell biology, insulin secretion, and diabetes pathophysiology. He is Full Professor of Medicine at the University of Montreal and Researcher at the Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CRCHUM).
Education
Rutter earned a Bachelor of Science (Class I Honours) in Biochemistry and Chemistry from the University of Nottingham in 1985 and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Bristol in 1988.[1]
Career
After completing his PhD, Rutter carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Bristol[2] and the University of Geneva, where he held a Medical Research Council Travelling Fellowship and a Ciba-Geigy Jubilee Fellowship.[3] He returned to the University of Bristol as a faculty member, becoming Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. In 2006 he joined Imperial College London as Head of the Section of Cell Biology and Functional Genomics and later served as Director of the Imperial Network of Excellence in Diabetes from 2018 to 2021. Rutter was appointed Full Professor of Medicine at the University of Montreal[4] and Principal Investigator at the CRCHUM in 2021, and in 2025 became Head of the Cardiometabolic Axis at the same institution.[5]
He also holds visiting professorships at Imperial College London[6] and at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.[7]
Research
Rutter’s research focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying diabetes mellitus, particularly how glucose, incretins, and other hormones regulate insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells.[8][9] His work has contributed to understanding beta-cell heterogeneity,[10] mitochondrial function,[11][12] and the genetic regulation of insulin release.[13]
He has been a co-principal investigator on several major research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR),[14] the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF),[15] and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. His laboratory employs genetic and imaging approaches, including optogenetics, super-resolution and intravital microscopy, and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models, to study beta-cell function and dysfunction in diabetes.[16]
Key scientific contributions
Rutter’s contributions include:
- Discovery of “disallowed” genes in pancreatic beta cells, identifying a set of genes selectively repressed to maintain normal insulin secretion.
- Development of fluorescent and bioluminescent probes to study intracellular calcium and ATP dynamics, pioneering live-cell imaging of insulin granule exocytosis.[17]
- Studies on AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and its role in beta-cell metabolism, identity, and viability.[18]
- Identification of type 2 diabetes-associated genes, including SLC30A8 (ZnT8), ZIP12, and ADCY5, as regulators of insulin secretion and zinc homeostasis.[19]
- Discovery of leader and hub beta cells that coordinate calcium signaling and insulin release across the pancreatic islet, establishing functional beta-cell heterogeneity.[20]
Honors and awards
- 2025 – Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci)[21]
- 2023 – The Sir Philip Randle Lecture, Biochemical Society[22]
- 2020 – Albert Renold Award Lecture, European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD)
- 2018 – Wellcome Trust Investigator Award[23]
- 2012 – Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award[24]
- 2011 – Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award[25]
- 2004 – Minkowski Prize, European Association for the Study of Diabetes[26]
References
- ^ "Guy A. Rutter, Professor and Head of Section" (PDF). University of Aberdeen.
- ^ "20th anniversary of Bristol University's bioimaging facility". University of Bristol. 29 April 2016.
- ^ "Rutter, Guy Allen". Unige.ch.
- ^ "Guy Rutter". Université de Montréal.
- ^ "Guy Rutter takes over as the new head of the Cardiometabolic research theme | CHUM". Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal. 1 July 2025.
- ^ "Guy Rutter, PhD". Imperial College London.
- ^ "LKCMedicine Faculty". Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.
- ^ Rutter, Guy A.; Hodson, David J. (1 February 2015). "Beta cell connectivity in pancreatic islets: a type 2 diabetes target?". Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences. 72 (3): 453–467. doi:10.1007/s00018-014-1755-4. ISSN 1420-9071. PMC 11113448. PMID 25323131.
- ^ Rutter, Guy A.; Pullen, Timothy J.; Hodson, David J.; Martinez-Sanchez, Aida (1 March 2015). "Pancreatic β-cell identity, glucose sensing and the control of insulin secretion". Biochemical Journal. 466 (2): 203–218. doi:10.1042/BJ20141384. PMID 25697093.
- ^ Benninger, Richard K. P.; Dorrell, Craig; Hodson, David J.; Rutter, Guy A. (24 September 2018). "The Impact of Pancreatic Beta Cell Heterogeneity on Type 1 Diabetes Pathogenesis". Current Diabetes Reports. 18 (11): 112. doi:10.1007/s11892-018-1085-2. ISSN 1539-0829. PMC 6153573. PMID 30251179.
- ^ Rutter, Guy A.; Georgiadou, Eleni; Martinez-Sanchez, Aida; Pullen, Timothy J. (1 October 2020). "Metabolic and functional specialisations of the pancreatic beta cell: gene disallowance, mitochondrial metabolism and intercellular connectivity". Diabetologia. 63 (10): 1990–1998. doi:10.1007/s00125-020-05205-5. ISSN 1432-0428. PMC 7476987. PMID 32894309.
- ^ "Misfolded proteins accumulate in the mitochondria of patients with type 2 diabetes". University of Michigan Medicine. 22 July 2025.
- ^ Rutter, Guy A.; Hodson, David J. (1 December 2013). "Minireview: Intraislet Regulation of Insulin Secretion in Humans". Molecular Endocrinology. 27 (12): 1984–1995. doi:10.1210/me.2013-1278. ISSN 1944-9917. PMC 5426601. PMID 24243488.
- ^ "Celebrating Health Research: The faces of health research 2023 - CIHR". Canadian Institutes of Health Research. 16 January 2023.
- ^ "University windfall for diabetes study". BBC. 18 March 2003.
- ^ Johnston, Natalie R.; Mitchell, Ryan K.; Haythorne, Elizabeth; Pessoa, Maria Paiva; Semplici, Francesca; Ferrer, Jorge; Piemonti, Lorenzo; Marchetti, Piero; Bugliani, Marco; Bosco, Domenico; Berishvili, Ekaterine; Duncanson, Philip; Watkinson, Michael; Broichhagen, Johannes; Trauner, Dirk; Rutter, Guy A.; Hodson, David J. (13 September 2016). "Beta Cell Hubs Dictate Pancreatic Islet Responses to Glucose". Cell Metabolism. 24 (3): 389–401. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2016.06.020. ISSN 1932-7420. PMC 5031557. PMID 27452146.
- ^ Tsuboi, Takashi; Zhao, Chao; Terakawa, Susumu; Rutter, Guy A. (14 October 2000). "Simultaneous evanescent wave imaging of insulin vesicle membrane and cargo during a single exocytotic event". Current Biology. 10 (20): 1307–1310. doi:10.1016/S0960-9822(00)00756-9. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 11069115.
- ^ Swisa, Avital; Granot, Zvi; Tamarina, Natalia; Sayers, Sophie; Bardeesy, Nabeel; Philipson, Louis; Hodson, David J.; Wikstrom, Jakob D.; Rutter, Guy A.; Leibowitz, Gil; Glaser, Benjamin; Dor, Yuval (21 August 2015). "Loss of Liver Kinase B1 (LKB1) in Beta Cells Enhances Glucose-stimulated Insulin Secretion Despite Profound Mitochondrial Defects". The Journal of Biological Chemistry. 290 (34): 20934–20946. doi:10.1074/jbc.M115.639237. ISSN 1083-351X. PMC 4543653. PMID 26139601.
- ^ Nicolson, Tamara J.; Bellomo, Elisa A.; Wijesekara, Nadeeja; Loder, Merewyn K.; Baldwin, Jocelyn M.; Gyulkhandanyan, Armen V.; Koshkin, Vasilij; Tarasov, Andrei I.; Carzaniga, Raffaella; Kronenberger, Katrin; Taneja, Tarvinder K.; da Silva Xavier, Gabriela; Libert, Sarah; Froguel, Philippe; Scharfmann, Raphael; Stetsyuk, Volodymir; Ravassard, Philippe; Parker, Helen; Gribble, Fiona M.; Reimann, Frank; Sladek, Robert; Hughes, Stephen J.; Johnson, Paul R. V.; Masseboeuf, Myriam; Burcelin, Remy; Baldwin, Stephen A.; Liu, Ming; Lara-Lemus, Roberto; Arvan, Peter; Schuit, Frans C.; Wheeler, Michael B.; Chimienti, Fabrice; Rutter, Guy A. (September 2009). "Insulin storage and glucose homeostasis in mice null for the granule zinc transporter ZnT8 and studies of the type 2 diabetes-associated variants". Diabetes. 58 (9): 2070–2083. doi:10.2337/db09-0551. ISSN 1939-327X. PMC 2731533. PMID 19542200.
- ^ Salem, Victoria; Silva, Luis Delgadillo; Suba, Kinga; Georgiadou, Eleni; Neda Mousavy Gharavy, S.; Akhtar, Nadeem; Martin-Alonso, Aldara; Gaboriau, David C. A.; Rothery, Stephen M.; Stylianides, Theodoros; Carrat, Gaelle; Pullen, Timothy J.; Singh, Sumeet Pal; Hodson, David J.; Leclerc, Isabelle; Shapiro, A. M. James; Marchetti, Piero; Briant, Linford J. B.; Distaso, Walter; Ninov, Nikolay; Rutter, Guy A. (June 2019). "Leader β-cells coordinate Ca2+ dynamics across pancreatic islets in vivo". Nature Metabolism. 1 (6): 615–629. doi:10.1038/s42255-019-0075-2. ISSN 2522-5812. PMC 7617060. PMID 32694805.
- ^ "Academy of Medical Sciences announces new Fellows for 2025". Academy of Medical Sciences.
- ^ "Biochemical Society announces its 2023 award recipients". Biochemistry.org.
- ^ "Investigator Awards in Science 2018". Wellcome.
- ^ "Investigator Awards in Science 2012". Wellcome.
- ^ "Royal Society announces prestigious Wolfson Research Merit Awards". Royal Society.
- ^ "Minkowski Prize". EASD.