Kevin Grove

Kevin Grove is an Associate scientist in the Division of Neuroscience and the Director of the Obese nonhuman primate resource and Co-director of the Metabolic Disease Work Group at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) and Oregon Health & Science University in Beaverton Oregon. Grove received his BSc in the Department of Animal Science at Washington State University in 1990, and his PhD in Neuroscience from the College of Veterinary Medicine at the same university in 1994. He did his postdoctoral work at the Institute of Clinical Research of Montreal. Grove returned to the Northwest to join the ONPRC Division of Neuroscience in 1996.  In the last 5 years, Dr. Grove has been invited to speak at numerous prestigious conferences including the 43rd Karolinska Institute Nobel Conference on Obesity (2004) and the 10th International Congress on Obesity (2006), and received the 2005 Allan Epstein Investigator award from the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB).  Grove was also the Community Trust Visiting Professor at Dunedin School of Medicine (University of Otago, New Zealand) in 2005.   Dr. Grove has published over 70 per reviewed manuscripts, is a member of the NIH study section for Neuroendocrinology, Neuroimmunology and Behavior (NNB), is a senior editor of the Journal of Neuroendocrinology and member of the Editorial Board for the journals Neuroendocrinology and the American Journal of Physiology.

My laboratory has several main areas of research focus all of which have a general theme around the regulation energy homeostasis with a major focus of our group is the investigation of the progression of metabolic disease as well as therapeutic interventions. 1) We are interested in the development of metabolic systems.  More specifically, we are interested in the impact of maternal health and diet and postnatal nutrition on the development of these systems and the long-term impact on metabolic health. The primary focus of these studies is the development of hypothalamic neurocircuitry that controls food intake and sympathetic outflow.  2)  We are interested in the progression of metabolic disease induced by a high fat diet.  A main focus of these studies is to determine the role of hyperlipidemia and proinflammatory cytokines in the development of the cardiovascular complications and diabetes.  3) We are interested in the metabolic adaptations pregnancy and lactation in the adult female.  The primary focus of these studies has been on changes in insulin and leptin sensitivity that occur during these reproductive states.  These studies investigate the neurocircuitry by which leptin and insulin may regulate the hypothalamic-gonadotropin axis.  A secondary focus of these studies are the possible complications during pregnancy and lactation associated with obesity, diabetes and consumption of a high fat diet.