Peter Jackson, PhD, Professor, Department of Microbiology & Immunology and Pathology (Baxter Lab), Department of Pathology, Stanford University

Research Description: Our research is focused on identifying key GPCRs and GPCR signaling pathways controlling obesity. The major projects include defining the omega-3 and insulin pathways signaling pathways driving adipogenesis and the omega-3 and GLP1 pathways enhancing insulin secretion. Both projects use extensive phosphoproteomics to define the activation pathways coupling insulin and signaling lipids to increases in fat mass, to define the threshold for lipid storage in adipose tissue, and to understand how hyperlipidemia drives defects in ciliary signaling in beta cells and in preadipocytes. The mechanistic studies in cell-based models are coupled to mouse models with ciliary knockouts in preadipocytes and mouse and human models for ciliary loss in pancreatic beta cells. Our lab collaborates extensively with many members of the NORC.