PROJECTS

Finish a marathon or eat all the delicious food while keeping a six-pack, I will be providing the means, not the judgement

Prolonged inactivity, bed rest or months spent in space take a heavy toll on our muscles. They start to become weaker and it gets progressively harder to restore their original strength without unwanted inflammation as a side effect. I am looking for ways to both slow down the muscle degeneration and speed up the regrowth.

I am interested in regulation of blood sugar and ways how to use the knowledge to improve the development of drugs to treat diabetes.

The answer might be hidden in what we call The Dark Side of the genome.

We always think of neurons as the only important cells in our brain. But brain is a complex organ, with its own metabolic needs that are catered to by different cell types. Among them, astrocytes are the new hype.

The benefits of exercise are many. In these projects we try to uncover mediators of the positive adaptations to exercise to combat obesity.

When you go hiking in the mountains, or try to catch a bus that is just departing, you body has to deal with insufficient supply of oxygen. In addition to pathways described in recent Nobel prize awards, we have discovered new players that could be used in development of treatments for conditions where oxygen supply is important such as stroke.

How nerves communicate to metabolic tissues such as muscle and fat. This project aims to understand how metabolic disease or exercise adaptation affect our sensory nerves.

Let’s find a way to help patients with fatty liver disease by understanding the molecular mechanisms behind disease development!

Communication amongst organ systems is vital to keep everything in balance—sensory neurons and adipose tissue (fat) are no different. We think that the communication between sensory neurons and adipose tissue in obesity and diabetes is not working properly, and thus contributing to the metabolic dysfunction seen in these patients.