We are currently accepting graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff to work on various projects. Our main areas of focus are focused in these areas, however we have many projects that are not described here. Please contact us for more information. We are enthusiastic about and open minded to new ideas that can change our understanding of immunology and metabolism.
Intercellular mitochondria transfer
Leveraging new mitochondria reporter mice and a genome-wide CRISPR knockout screen, we have generated the first genetic tools to disrupt mitochondria uptake by recipient cells. We are interested in understanding how this process affects the immune response and metabolic homeostasis.
See our latest cutting-edge papers in Cell Metabolism:
Brestoff et al. Cell Metab., 2021
Borcherding/Jia et al., Cell Metab., 2022
Rosina et al., Cell Metab., 2022
Immune cell regulation of metabolic homeostasis and obesity pathogenesis
We study a diverse set of immune cells in white adipose tissue (WAT), beige adipocytes, and brown adipose tissue (BAT) and how these cells regulate metabolic homeostasis.
We have projects available focusing on Group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2), eosinophils, macrophages, monocytes, mast cells, neutrophils, natural killer cells, CD4 T cells, and CD8 T cells.
Autophagy and Mitophagy
Autophagy is the process by which cells recycle damaged organelles such as mitochondria and catabolize lipids. We have many tools and resources to study how autophagy regulates immunometabolism and inflammation.
Brestoff Lab at Washington University in St Louis 