Mark Zimering
Dr. Mark Zimering is the Chief of Endocrinology at the Department of Veterans Affairs in East Orange, New Jersey and Associate Professor of Medicine Co-Terminous at UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Dr. Zimering received his undergraduate training at Harvard College, MD and PhD degrees from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and completed an endocrinology fellowship at the NIH. His research has focused on roles for basic fibroblast growth factor (or autoantibodies which mimic or inhibit its effects) in diabetic vascular complications. He reported markedly increased plasma basic fibroblast growth in a subset of obese adult participants from the Veterans Affairs Diabetes Trial having increased coronary heart disease occurrence. His group reported low levels of plasma basic fibroblast growth factor in adult diabetes having a cluster of microvascular complications (macular edema, albuminuria, painful neuropathy) in association with endothelial cell inhibitory autoantibodies which activated the RhoA/Rho kinase signaling pathway in endothelial cells or caused global increases in intracellular calcium in endothelial cells, neurons or cardiomyocytes.