Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and Psychiatry, Stanford University Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Research Description: Dr. Deisseroth’s laboratory has developed and applied precise tools for controlling (via optogenetics, fiber photometry, and spatial light modulators) and observing (via hydrogel-tissue chemistries like CLARITY and STARmap) specific elements of intact biological systems; they develop and apply these and other tools for the study of physiology and behavior in health and disease, and support researchers around the world by disseminating the reagents and techniques. They have over ten years focused our biology investigations using these tools in the realm of motivation, reward, and anxiety. Dr. Deisseroth has leveraged and expanded my longstanding technology-dissemination infrastructure for hands-on technology training for the community. Dr. Deisseroth’s laboratory has used optogenetic tools in mice to understand circuits driving feeding control. Although several anorexigenic circuits have been mapped, the knowledge of the neuroendocrine control of feeding mechanisms is very incomplete and also lacks information about the neural signals and important signal transduction pathways mediating these signals. By interacting with the NORC investigators, he would hope to help find new foci connecting nutritive signals to reward centers and potentially uncover key mechanisms for more effective anti-obesity treatments. Dr. Deisseroth actively collaborates with NORC member, Dr. Angelo M.