Zsu-Zsu Chen, MD

  • Clinical Provider
  • Type 2 Diabetes
Staff Physician
Staff Scientist, BIDMC

Zsu-Zsu Chen is a physician at Joslin Diabetes Center. She obtained her medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. Dr. Chen completed her residency in internal medicine at Tufts Medical Center and her fellowship in endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at the joint Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Joslin Diabetes Center fellowship program.

Dr. Chen currently sees patients in the Adult Diabetes Clinic at Joslin and the Endocrinology Clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Her research focuses on leveraging metabolomics and proteomics, high through-put methods to measure circulating small molecules and proteins in human plasma, to identify potential biomarkers of type 2 diabetes. This research focuses on elucidating biological pathways that, when perturbed, lead to diabetes as well as its associated complications.

Dr. Chen work with several large epidemiological cohorts, including the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), Jackson Heart Study (JHS), and the Shanghai Heart Study, to also study how race and ethnicity may interact with these biological pathways. Her clinical interests are in type 2 diabetes prevention and the optimization of type 2 diabetes treatment at the level of an individual patient and more globally within an institution and/or a health care system.

Research Interests

Study of circulating small molecule and protein biomarkers of type 2 diabetes development, prognosis, and treatment response.

Education

Medical School: University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine
Residency: Tufts Medical Center
Fellowship: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Joslin Diabetes Center 

Publications

1. Chen ZZ, and Hennessey JV. Abnormal thyroid stimulating hormone values that are not due to common causes of primary hypothyroidism or thyrotoxicosis.  In: Garg RK, Hennessy JV, Malabanan AO, and Garber JR, editors. Handbook of Inpatient Endocrinology. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2020. P. 55-72.

2. Nath AJ, Ma J, Chen ZZ, Li Z, Vitery M, Kelley ML, Peterson RT, Gerszten RE, Yeh J-R.  Genetic deletion of gpr27 alters acylcarnitine metabolism, insulin sensitivity, and glucose homeostasis in zebrafish.  FASEB.  2019 Dec: [Epub ahead of print]. doi.org/10.1096/fj.201901466R.

3. Chen ZZ, Liu J, Morningstar J, Heckman-Stoddard BM, Lee CG, Dagogo-Jack S, Ferguson JF, Hamman R, Knowler WC, Mather KJ, Perreault L, Florez JC, Wang TJ, Clish C, Temprosa M, and Gerszten RE, and the Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group. Metabolite profiles of incident diabetes and heterogeneity of treatment effect in the Diabetes Prevention Program. Diabetes. 2019 Dec; 68 (12):2337-2349. doi: 10.2337/db19-0236. PMID: 31582408. 4. Lin X, Parisiadou L, Gu X, Wang L, Shim H, Sun L, Xie C, Long C, Yang W, Ding J, Chen ZZ, Gallant PE, Tao-Cheng J, Rudow G, Troncoso JC, Liu Z, Li Z, Cai H. Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 regulates the progression of neuropathology induced by Parkinson’s disease related mutant α-synuclein. Neuron. 2009 Dec 24;64(6):807-27. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2009.11.006. PMID: 20064389

Zsu-Zsu Chen, MD

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