“How Nicotinamide Riboside Promotes Weight Loss” will be presented by Dr. Charles M. Brenner, PhD, Roy J. Carver Chair of Biochemistry & Professor of Internal Medicine, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa.

Charles Brenner trained in molecular biology and genetics at Wesleyan University, Chiron Corporation and DNAX Research Institute before conducting his PhD with Robert Fuller at Stanford University. There, he was the first to purify and characterize the Kex2 prohormone convertase and apply biochemical and genetic tools to characterize its substrate specificity and mechanism. He served as a Leukemia Society of America Fellow with Gregory Petsko from 1993 to 1996 before taking an independent position at Thomas Jefferson University, where he earned funding from the National Institutes of Health and multiple private agencies. He was recruited to leadership positions at Dartmouth’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center in 2003 and to become Head of Biochemistry at the University of Iowa in 2009. An expert in metabolism, he is best known for discovering nicotinamide riboside as a eukaryotic NAD precursor vitamin and for making novel contributions to our understanding of reversible modifications to DNA and proteins. He is also credited with re-invigorating the Department of Biochemistry and for launching the Obesity Research and Education Initiative at the University of Iowa.