The role of the NPY system in health and disease

肥胖相关疾病是一个主要的健康问题，治疗无效。我的团队的重点是确定一种叫做神经肽Y （NPY）的大脑分子是如何控制食欲和身体脂肪量的，以及在肥胖或另一种极端情况下，厌食症是如何改变的，厌食症在晚期癌症中很常见。我们将使用转基因小鼠模型，研究NPY在不同应激条件下和癌症中的作用。这将告诉我们，以NPY系统为靶点的药物是否可以治疗这些疾病。

Obesity-associated diseases are a major health problem and treatments are ineffective. My team’s focus is to determine how a brain molecule called neuropeptide Y (NPY) controls appetite and body fat mass and how this is changed in obesity or in the other extreme, anorexia, which is common in late stage cancer. We will use genetically modified mouse models and investigate the role of NPY under different stress conditions and in cancer. This will tell us if targeting this NPY system with drugs may provide a treatment for these diseases.