Steven Mittelman

Dr. Steven Mittelman is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Physiology & Biophysics in the Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. He received his MD and PhD degrees from the Keck School of Medicine, where he worked on elucidating the physiological mechanisms by which insulin regulates blood sugar. Further work examined how pancreatic beta-cells compensate for obesity-induced insulin resistance, and how appetite regulating hormones work in obese adolescents. Steven completed his residency in pediatrics and fellowship in pediatric endocrinology at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. During his subspecialty training, Steven learned of an important finding by researchers in the Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases: children who are obese when they are diagnosed with high-risk leukemia have a 50% higher chance of relapsing than those who are lean. In fact, obesity increases the risk of dying from many different types of cancer, such as breast, colon, and prostate, and may be responsible for up to 15-20% of cancer deaths in the U.S. Dr. Mittelman turned his expertise in obesity into work exploring the relationships between obesity and leukemia relapse, in collaboration with Drs. Nora Heisterkamp and Anna Butturini. His laboratory is currently investigating how obesity and cancer interact, using both mouse models and tissue cultures. He has found evidence that fat tissue may absorb some chemotherapies, so that these drugs are not available to kill the cancer cells. He also found that fat cells play an active role in the cancer microenvironment, participating in a two-way communication with cancer cells, and producing metabolic fuels and survival factors which protect cancer cells from chemotherapies. These findings have led to multiple publications which have been well-received in both the scientific and lay press. Dr. Mittelman is currently investigating strategies to block some of these effects of adipocytes, in the hopes that this will lead to improvements in cancer survival in both thin and overweight people.