Clinical Interests
Dr. Arbelaez evaluates children with a variety of Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes and Endocrine disorders at St. Louis Children's Hospital: hypoglycemia and metabolism disorders, growth disorders, thyroid disorders, disorders of pituitary and adrenal gland, disorders of puberty and endocrine disorders in patients with cystic fibrosis.
Dr. Arbelaez is the Co-Director for the Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Clinical Research Training Program at Washington University in St Louis. In her research laboratory, she studies the effects of glycemic extremes (hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia)and glucose deprivation (malnutrition) on brain glucose metabolism, neurodevelopment and glucose counterregulation. She has experience conducting interdisciplinary human studies of glucose counterregulation using neuroimaging methodologies, such as PET and MRI and in the management of multidisciplinary domestic and international research teams. She has been part of multicenter studies such as the TODAY Study and DirecNet Study. Dr. Arbelaez’s work has been funded by both federal and non-federal sources, including: the NIH, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Children’s Discovery Institute, The Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences, and the Washington University Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. She is a member of the American Society for Pediatric Research. Her work has contributed to our understanding of the brain-hormone interactions during the cascade of physiological responses that occur across various levels of glycemia and how these are altered in vivo in humans.