Unique human expertise

If Université de Montréal were looking for a spokesperson among its graduates, they could ask Khalil Bouyakdan. The man has the institution engraved in his heart. He spent his entire university career there before becoming the manager of the Metabolic Phenotyping Core Facility at the CHUM Research Centre in 2018.

Having come to Quebec with his parents at the age of four, this scientist has had a smooth academic trajectory in Montreal, including a bachelor’s in biochemistry and a master’s on the embryonic development of the brain at the CHU Sainte-Justine. For his PhD, he focused on metabolism and the hypothalamus in the laboratory of Thierry Alquier, a researcher and the manager of the Cardiometabolic Research Theme.

Together, they showed for the first time in mice that the protein ACBP directly influences neurons, allowing rodents and humans to maintain a healthy weight. In fact, no matter how much we exercise and eat a balanced diet, weight control has more to do with your brain than you think!

The two men have worked together since. Khalil Bouyakdan manages the core facility, while his former thesis director is his scientific advisor.

Analyzing metabolism 

“Understanding metabolism and its failings is the goal of the Metabolic Phenotyping Core Facility. The phenotype is all the observable characteristics of an individual or animal. It’s what the genes express,” he explained.

In this field, most tests were developed for humans and then adapted to rodents – most often mice – in order to conduct basic research studies on metabolic diseases.

For example, research teams study mice and want to understand why they become obese or are resistant to obesity.

“In their search for explanations, they come to us to measure in rodents, among other things, glucose metabolism and insulin tolerance, to calculate energy expenditure as a function of oxygen consumption, to determine the source used to generate this energy and to monitor weight progression, internal temperature and movements in real time.”

These days, Bouyakdan, like many funding bodies, encourages the research teams to include female mice in their metabolic studies. The fact of having only males skews results: estrogens are known to have beneficial effects on metabolism.

An outstanding core facility

But what sets this core facility of the Research Centre apart from those of other institutions isn’t the specialized equipment, which is rather standard.

“It’s all about human expertise. Our two animal health technicians, Mélanie Éthier and Grace Fergusson, have extraordinary skills and exceptional dexterity, especially for specialized surgeries and advanced tests. Their fifteen years of experience has led to the high demand for our services.”

The two women began in the laboratory of Dr. Vincent Poitout, now Director of Research at the CHUM and a researcher, gaining the knowledge needed to isolate pancreatic islets, for example. Dr. Poitout is among their many customers at the CHUM Research Centre.

For the needs of a local team, Bouyakdan’s team recently “pushed” a metabolic test further by adding a radioactive glucose tracer. It allows researchers to see the liver’s production of glucose and determine what tissue picks up the glucose and in what quantity.

In addition to the members of his team, he can count on the collaboration of the two veterinarians from the animal facility, Hélène Héon and Maryse Boulay, as well as their colleagues on the Institutional Animal Protection Committee.

A transmitter of science

Because of the core facility’s excellent reputation, Khalil Bouyakdan receives requests from universities in Quebec and Canada, occasionally from private companies, and internationally for projects carried out with teams from the Research Centre.

“Outside the Research Centre, our visibility is due in large part to the fact that our contributions are mentioned in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section of articles and that we are sometimes included in the list of authors,” explained the scientist, still just as enthusiastic after five years in his position. A gracious nod to the research teams.

 Our goal is to do good science and to facilitate research on diabetes and obesity, among others, and to let the public reap the benefits. 

In that respect, Khalil Bouyakdan has the power to change things, one study after another.