Nathan Winn
Research Assistant Professor, Molecular Physiology and Biophysics
Research Description
My postdoctoral research has focused on understanding the physiological and molecular links between immunometabolism in adipose tissue and metabolic disease. Throughout my training I have incorporated environmental temperature (autonomic control), exercise, and nutrient cycling (i.e., weight cycling) as modulators of energy metabolism. These toolkits are used as provocative stimuli to test mechanisms of nutrient regulation that may be otherwise silent in the resting or unprovoked state. Indeed, using a translational mouse model, our studies show that weight cycling disrupts β-cell compensation resulting in impaired insulin secretion and amplifies the glucose intolerance of obesity. Thus, the objective of my current work is to define the underlying mechanism(s) resulting in diminished capacity for β-cells to adapt to weight regain.