Trayambak Pathak
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans, LA·Physiology·Early-career
Obesity raises the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer, and current treatments often fall short. One way the body burns fat is brown adipose tissue (BAT), a type of fat that burns energy to make heat.
- Fields
Physiology
Pharmacology
Biochemistry
- Topics
obesity
Orai3
store-operated calcium entry
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2028
What they work on
- Test whether calcium entry through Orai3 channels drives mitochondrial heat production in brown adipose tissue to limit fat buildup, by measuring mitochondrial metabolism in Orai3 knockout mice.
- Determine whether Orai3 activity is needed to switch on UCP1, the heat-producing protein of brown fat, by studying the transcription factors that control UCP1 and restoring UCP1 in Orai3 knockout mice.
- Test whether Orai3 in the brain and peripheral nerves controls brown fat activity, by mapping Orai3 with RNAscope and deleting it in the brain to measure brown fat function, obesity and high blood pressure under cold or high-fat diet.
More about the research
Calcium signals inside cells are known to help control fat breakdown, but how they connect to heat production and obesity is unclear. This project explores a calcium channel called Orai3 as a possible link between calcium signals, fat burning and obesity.
Why it matters
Obesity affects a large share of the US population and drives heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer, yet current treatments are often ineffective. Showing that Orai3 calcium channels control heat production in brown fat and the nerves that activate it could identify Orai3 as a target for new non-invasive obesity treatments and for obesity-related cardiovascular disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sona Kang
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Physiology
Define how FAM3D, a protein genetically linked to type 2 diabetes, suppresses heat production and mitochondrial function in mouse and human brown fat cells.
Hang Shi
Georgia State University, GA·Physiology
Test whether deleting or overexpressing Uhmk1, a gene that supports nerve-fiber growth, in mouse sympathetic neurons changes nerve supply to fat, brown/beige fat heat production and energy expenditure during cold exposure.
Min Du
Washington State University, WA·Physiology
Test whether maternal obesity suppresses AMPK, an energy-sensing enzyme, and thereby blocks embryonic progenitor cells from committing to a muscle fate, using single-cell omics analysis of mouse embryonic tissue.
The school
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans: 3 labs on PI Pages, $80M a year on research, 24 research doctorates a year.
More about Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.