Sagar Bapat, an Indian American researcher developing a novel type of living T cell-based therapy to tackle obesity-induced diabetes, has won a 2026 Pathway to Stop Diabetes Award from the American Diabetes Association.
Bapat, an Assistant Professor at University of California, San Francisco, is developing a novel T cell therapy to enhance thermogenic function of adipose tissue, seeking to harness targeted cellular therapy and CRISPR technology to offer durable, preventative interventions against obesity-induced diabetes.
“This award will enable us to pursue a novel type of living T cell-based therapy aimed at modulating adipose tissue function to promote metabolic health,” he said. “By harnessing the unique mobility and functional versatility of T cells, our goal is to restore healthy tissue function and improve insulin sensitivity in metabolic and inflammatory disease”
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“The Pathway award provides critical support to translate these insights into therapeutic strategies with the potential for long-term benefit for patients,” said Bapat.
Bapat is one of the recipients of seven new awards, totaling $11.3 million. Through the Pathway program, talented early-career scientists who demonstrate exceptional innovation, creativity, and productivity receive five to seven years of funding to explore new ideas without traditional project constraints.
“Diabetes research is vital to improving the lives of people living with diabetes, and ultimately finding a cure,” said Rita Kalyani, the ADA’s chief scientific and medical officer. “The ADA is proud to foster new medical breakthroughs and support early-career investigators who are conducting innovative, high-impact diabetes research. Congratulations to these pioneering scientists.”
Bapat is working on developing a novel T cell therapy to tackle obesity and its co-associated metabolic disease type 2 diabetes, a leading cause of mortality in the United States. Its prevalence continues to rise in concert with the rising prevalence of obesity, the predominant risk factor for developing insulin resistance and diabetes.
Obesity can result from a multitude of different complex physiological and socioeconomic conditions that individuals are often unable to overcome. Simply stated however, obesity is a manifestation of excessive storage of energy. Consequently, it could potentially be mitigated by turning on the body’s dormant systems for burning, not storing, that energy, says Bapat.
Bapat’s team plans to engineer fat-localizing Treg cells to deliver signals to convert energy-storing adipose tissue (AT) into energy-burning AT, thereby reversing or preventing obesity and insulin resistance in mice and eventually humans.
Bapat earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in 2009, completed his MD–PhD at the University of California, San Diego and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in 2017, and finished a residency in clinical pathology at UCSF in 2020.