Research
Overview
My research interests center around the regulatory mechanisms of energy homeostasis through modulation of tissue-specific and systemic energy metabolism, and how these mechanisms fail or are overwhelmed leading to weight gain and, ultimately, obesity. This starts by studying how the function of the primary energy producing cellular bodies, mitochondria, can impact tissue function and systemic health. Currently, the lab is investigating: 1) how liver mitochondrial function can, through peripheral neural pathways to the homeostatic control regions of the brain, influence sex differences in high fat diet-induced weight, 2) how systemic energy expenditure and sex differences interact to regulate diet-induced weight gain, changes in adiposity, and adaptation of energy metabolism, and finally, 3) whether transcriptional control of mitochondrial lipid metabolism in the ventromedial hypothalamus is necessary for alterations in energy metabolism resulting in susceptibility to diet-induced weight gain.
