Arpit Sharma
Tufts University, MA·Biochemistry·Early-career
When a meal is skipped, cells switch from burning sugar to burning fat, and how well an organism makes that switch, its metabolic flexibility, tends to decline with age. This project asks whether a small and often overlooked cell compartment is a control point for that switch and for lifespan itself.
- Fields
Biochemistry
Biology
Physiology
- Topics
peroxisomes
organelle remodeling
peroxisomal protein import
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Determine why peroxisomes, organelles devoted largely to lipid metabolism, change shape during fasting, and test whether this remodeling increases the efficiency with which cells oxidize lipids.
- Define how peroxisomal protein import, the delivery of newly made enzymes into the organelle, regulates peroxisomal fatty acid oxidation during fasting and thereby increases metabolic flexibility.
- Test the hypothesis that the capacity to remodel peroxisomal form and function underlies the lifespan extension seen with intermittent fasting and dietary restriction, both of which require altered lipid metabolism.
- Identify targets that restore peroxisomal function and reverse age-related dysregulation of lipid oxidation, as the basis for an independent program on peroxisome metabolism and signaling in longevity.
More about the research
Peroxisomes are organelles found in essentially all cells with duties focused almost entirely on lipid metabolism, yet their contribution to whole-organism metabolism and aging has been little studied, and the mechanisms that reshape them are largely unknown.
Why it matters
Losing the ability to switch fuels is a feature of aging and of metabolic disease. Showing that peroxisome remodeling and protein import set metabolic flexibility during fasting would identify these organelles as a handle on lipid metabolism, and could point to targets for restoring age-related declines in fat oxidation and extending healthy lifespan.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Radhika Muzumdar
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Physiology
Determine how effectively humanin, a small peptide encoded in mitochondria, protects the heart in mouse models of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury and ischemia-induced heart failure in aging, measuring infarct size and cardiac function.
DurreShahwar Muhammad
University of Massachusetts, MA·Biology·Early-career
Identify and characterize the proteins acted on by LON2, a peroxisomal protein that refolds and degrades other proteins, including substrates that promote pexophagy (peroxisome destruction) in Arabidopsis.
Tom A Rapoport
Harvard University, MA·Biochemistry
Determine how misfolded glycoproteins, proteins carrying sugar chains, are delivered to the Hrd1 complex and moved from the ER interior across the membrane, building on cryo-electron microscopy structures.
The school
Tufts University: 19 labs on PI Pages, $278M a year on research, 144 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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