B.U. PhD Student Raises Money for International Conference Presentation

A Boston University PhD student who has been researching the relationship between sugar metabolism and liver disease for over six years will be presenting her findings at an international science conference this spring.

Sarah Oppelt, a Somerville resident, started at B.U. in 2007. She worked in the Molecular Biology, Cell Biology & Biochemistry Program (MCBB) before joining the Tolan lab in the summer of the following year.

Oppelt started a GoFundMe campaign last Wednesday to help fund a conference presentation on her research, which will take place in British Columbia, Canada. She is aiming to raise $3,000 by Wednesday, Jan. 21.

“The work I’m doing looks at what happens in your liver when you eat fructose versus glucose,” Oppelt said to Patch. “There are some people [with Hereditary Fructose Intolerance] who cannot eat fructose at all, and if they do they end up dying unless they can get it out of their diet. We’ve uncovered general principles that lead normal people to develop liver disease and fat build up from eating too much sugar.”

Her campaign, entitled Sarah Shares Science!, indicates that donations will go toward her journey to the Great White North to speak at Keystone Symposia’s Liver Metabolism and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) (X8) conference in March 2015.

“I know that the work we’ve been doing in the Tolan lab at B.U. is going to directly impact people’s health by fighting fatty liver disease, obesity and metabolic syndrome,” she says on her GoFundMe page. “We’re going to see an increase in the quality of life by relief from these conditions within our lifetime. By donating, you’re helping further this research and broadening our knowledge of sugar metabolism and its effects on liver health versus disease.”

Learn more about the Sarah Shares Science! campaign and make a donation today.

Photo courtesy of Sarah Oppelt.