Luke I. Szweda, PhD, joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in 2024 as a Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology and member of the Sarver Heart Center. Dr. Szweda received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1982 from Carleton College in Northfield, MN and, under the mentorship of Daniel E. Atkinson, PhD, a doctoral degree in chemistry and biochemistry in 1990 from the University of California, Los Angeles. He performed postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Earl R. Stadtman, PhD, at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD from 1990 to 1995. He then established an independent research laboratory at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH where he served as an Assistant and then Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics from 1995 to 2004. The Szweda laboratory relocated to the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation in Oklahoma City, OK in 2005. After serving as Professor and Chair of the Aging and Metabolism Research Program from 2006 to 2016, Dr. Szweda joined the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. He was a professor in the Division of Cardiology from 2017 to 2024 prior to arriving at the University of Arizona. Dr. Szweda’s laboratory studies how changes in cardiac metabolism induced by nutrient and energetic stress contribute to heart disease. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2013, has served as an editorial board member of the journal Circulation since 2016, and has been a member and chair of multiple NIH and American Heart Association study sections.
The heart relies on the oxidation of glucose and fatty acids to provide energy required for contraction and relaxation. Changes in nutrient availability and energetic demand necessitate changes in the rate and relative oxidation of glucose and fatty acids. Loss in this metabolic flexibility is thought to contribute to cardiovascular disease associated with obesity, hypertension, and diabetes. Our laboratory investigates mechanisms by which cardiac glucose and fatty acid oxidation are regulated in response to changes in nutritional status, energetic demand, and time-of-day. These studies provide a foundation for identifying metabolic determinants of heart disease and interventions to promote heart health.
