Sep 2025:

Our lab has been awarded a multi-year funded R01 (RF1 mechanism) from the NIA to advance our work on fat–brain communication and brain senescence, and we are now recruiting a postdoctoral fellow and a staff scientist to join us.

May 2025:

Our lab has uncovered how changes in adipocyte metabolism directly influence brain health via a novel adipo-glial pathway. In a recent Cell Reports study (PMID: 40372917), featured in a special issue of metabolic inter-organ communication, we show that high-sugar diets reprogram fat-cell metabolism in Drosophila, which in turn alters the ability of brain glial cells to clear neuronal debris. We identify adipocyte-derived ApoB lipoproteins as essential signals that sustain glial phagocytic function, linking dietary sugar and adipose metabolism to neuroprotection.

Jul 2024:

Our lab’s study about the surprising role of Atg8/LC3 in controlling leptin/Upd2 secretion from adipocytes in both flies and humans is out in Current Biology. This 8-year-long study will open many new directions for our thinking about how cell intrinsic nutrient sensing proteins play roles in systemic nutrient surplus communication. Here is a fun and accessible article by John Higgins, a science writer at the Fred Hutch, about our study’s implications for obesity.

Nov 2023:

Mroj’s study about the effect of how glial function in the central adult fly brain is imapired by prolonged exposure to high-sugar diets (HSD) and insulin resistance is covered by Fred Hutch and other news outlets.

Sept 2023:

Akhila delivered the Judith. E. Greenberg Early Career Investigator 2023 lecture at the NIGMS on Sept 27th 2023. Learn more here.

Jul 2023:

We are excited to receive the McKnight Foundation’s Neurobiology award 2023, which funds our studies on study on how adipocytes use mitochondrial component transfer to impact brain function. Read more here.

March 2023:

Mroj Alassaf is awarded the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellowship for her studies on a novel brain communication modality involving adipocyte-to-brain mitochondrial transfer. Read more about this award and Mroj’s discovery here.

Oct 2022:

Our work on how high-sugar diets disrupt feeding behavior was published in eLife.

Aug 2022:

Super excited that NIGMS competitively renewed the MIRA-R35 (GM124593) grant to our lab for another 5 years!! This will support our investigations on the non-canonical role of Atg8 in organismal physiology.

May 2022:

We received seed funding from the Brain research foundation (BRF). Kudos to post-doc fellow Mroj Alassaf for spearheading this work on fat-brain mitochondrial transfer!

June 2021:

Kevin Kelly, is awarded NSF post-doctoral fellowship with the appointment starting Nov 1, 2021. Congrats, Kevin!!