Former local makes waves in medical industry

LEADING RESEARCH IN THE LABORATORY… Former local, Andrew Carey is incredibly proud of his team’s work in the highly successful Metabolic and Vascular Physiology Laboratory. Photo: Supplied.
LEADING RESEARCH IN THE LABORATORY… Former local, Andrew Carey is incredibly proud of his team’s work in the highly successful Metabolic and Vascular Physiology Laboratory. Photo: Supplied.

A LESSER-KNOWN fact about the human body is that it contains both white and brown fat. White fat is the type you acquire in rolls around your belly and other places just beneath the skin; however, like muscle, brown fat in humans, follows a ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ principle, basically meaning the more you use it the better it gets.

The study of brown fat in particular has become the passionate life work of Andrew Carey, a former local, and son of Carmel and Tom Carey (former The Adviser journalist), in a bid to understand the way it works and in order to ultimately, treat and prevent obesity and associated diseases. Born and raised in Shepparton, Andrew completed his schooling at St Brendan’s primary school and Notre Dame College before heading off to Melbourne at 18 to pursue his studies in sports physiology, and ultimately a PhD in biomedical physiology, at RMIT University.

After completing his undergraduate and postgraduate research, in 2007 Andrew initiated a research program dedicated to study of brown adipose tissue in humans.

In 2009 he moved to Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, to Prof Bronwyn Kingwell’s highly successful Metabolic and Vascular Physiology Laboratory. Here, with well-established collaborations within the Baker Institute and The Alfred Hospital, Andrew was able to initiate higher impact and innovative work in the study of brown fat in humans. Now leading this research program, the group is becoming established as a laboratory with expertise in this field.

Andrew says they are working hard to find a drug that can promote the stimulation of brown fat and therefore reduce the likelihood of metabolic diseases developing in the body, such as fatty liver disease.

“Our theory is if we can treat liver fat and reduce that burden early on, you’re reducing the likelihood of developing more debilitating obesity-associated diseases later on,” he said.