Doege Lab

Research

Research in the Doege Lab is focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying human genetic obesity. We aim to identify therapeutically tractable hypothalamic neuronal pathways not previously implicated in body weight regulation and thus, to develop novel therapeutic approaches for obesity.

Our strategies include:

  • Conducting functional studies of novel obesity variants/genes in human stem cell-derived hypothalamic neurons and transgenic mice.
  • Implementing single-cell transcriptomics and epigenomics to characterize the diversity of cell types in the human hypothalamus and how these populations of cells are altered in obesity.
  • Utilizing computational biology approaches to integrate GWAS and functional genomics data from the human brain and patient-specific hypothalamic cells to characterize disease-perturbed gene networks and molecular disease mechanisms.


People

Our Team

Claudia A. Doege, MD

Associate Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology

Maria Caterina De Rosa, PhD

Associate Research Scientist

F. M. Betul Erol Gulsen, MD

Postdoctoral Research Scientist

AsiaLuna Patlis, BS

PhD Candidate, Nutritional and Metabolic Biology Program

Rick Rausch

Research Scientist

Alisha Basak

Research Scientist

Research

Recent Publications

Single-cell genomics reveals region-specific developmental trajectories underlying neuronal diversity in the human hypothalamus.

Herb BR, Glover HJ, Bhaduri A, Colantuoni C, Bale TL, Siletti K, Hodge R, Lein E, Kriegstein AR, Doege CA, Ament SA
Science Advances. 2023

Gene expression atlas of energy balance brain regions.

De Rosa MC, Glover HJ, Stratigopoulos G, LeDuc CA, Su Q, Shen Y, Sleeman MW, Chung WK, Leibel RL, Altarejos J, Doege CA
JCI Insight. 2021

Bardet-Biedl syndrome proteins regulate intracellular signaling and neuronal function in patient-specific iPSC-derived neurons.

Wang L, Liu Y, Stratigopoulos G, Panigrahi S, Sui L, Zhang Y, Leduc CA, Glover HJ, De Rosa MC, Burnett LC, Williams DJ, Shang L, Goland R, Tsang SH, Wardlaw S, Egli D, Zheng D, Doege CA, Leibel RL
J Clin Invest. 2021

Functional identity of hypothalamic melanocortin neurons depends on Tbx3

Quarta C, Fisette A, Xu Y, Colldén G, Legutko B, Tseng YT, Reim A, Wierer M, De Rosa MC, Klaus V, Rausch R, Thaker VV, Graf E, Strom TM, Poher AL, Gruber T, Le Thuc O, Cebrian-Serrano A, Kabra D, Bellocchi L, Woods SC, Pflugfelder GO, Nogueiras R, Zeltser L, Grunwald Kadow IC, Moon A, García-Cáceres C, Mann M, Treier M, Doege CA, Tschöp MH
Nat Metab. 2019

DMSO increases efficiency of genome editing at two non-coding loci.

Stratigopoulos G, De Rosa MC, LeDuc CA, Leibel RL, Doege CA
PloS One. 2018

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