James Minchin

We study how two key regulatory systems - the brain and adipose tissue - control metabolic health and resilience. In the brain, we focus on how hypothalamic neurons and glia govern energy homeostasis; and in adipose tissue, on mechanisms that control cellular adaptation and plasticity in response to energetic state.

How the body sustains metabolic health in the face of modern life - excess nutrients, sedentary lifestyles, chronic stress, and ageing - is one of the defining questions of our time. Failures of this resilience underlie some of the most pressing diseases we face, from obesity and cardiovascular disease to neurodegeneration. Understanding how the body achieves and maintains this balance requires understanding the key regulatory systems that govern it.

We focus on two: the brain and adipose tissue. In the brain, we use human genetic and population-level data to identify genes and pathways associated with energy homeostasis, then model these in zebrafish to understand their function in vivo. Our focus is the hypothalamus, where neurons and glia integrate signals to govern feeding and metabolism. In adipose tissue, we use live non-invasive imaging in transparent zebrafish to study the in vivo cell biology underlying how fat tissue responds, adapts, and remodels in response to energetic state - revealing the cellular mechanisms that underpin metabolic resilience.

Together, these two programmes aim to build a mechanistic understanding of how the brain and body fat sustain metabolic health and what goes wrong in disease.