Barbara Ukropcova MD

Dr. Barbara Ukropcova, MD graduated in 1998 (cum laudam) from the School of Medicine Commenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. Later in 2002, she obtained her specialization diploma in internal medicine. After 3 years of clinical work at the Department of palliative medicine at the Slovak National Institute of Oncology in Bratislava, Barbara accepted (post-doctoral) research position at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA, USA in the Endocrinology Laboratory led by prof. Steven R Smith. For 3.5 years she was studying the basic pathophysiological mechanisms of diabetes and obesity, focusing on the role of skeletal muscle in insulin resistance.

In particular, she studied principles of cell plasticity and metabolic flexibility using a cell culture model derived from human skeletal muscle. Barbara established measurements of the fatty acid and glucose oxidation and became very instrumental in quantitative PCR, western blot and other relevant techniques of molecular biology and biochemistry. Currently, Barbara is a PhD student in the Diabetes Laboratory lead by prof. Iwar Klimes. Barbara is an author and co-author of 5 CC listed papers (including Diabetes, J Clin Invest, Cell Metabolism, JCEM, Plos) quoted more than 30 times in CC listed journals.