Available Positions

Interactions between circadian clocks and exercise physiology We employ various clock mutant mouse models with different light regimens to characterize the interaction between clocks and exercise. Further, we have designed and built fully automated time-controlled Running Wheels that can be programmed in advance to be in locked or unlocked positions for designated times to enable scheduled training of animals without manual interventions.

Area: 
Life Sciences
Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Circadian clocks are key regulators of daily physiology and metabolism in mammals. Our understanding of the role of the circadian clock and specific clock proteins in controlling exercise capacity is rudimentary. Consequently, there is growing interest in exercise biology in general, specifically in its interaction with other processes that govern whole-body physiology and metabolism. We have reported that mice show a day-time variance in exercise capacity, and it is affected by exercise intensity and clock proteins and elicits a distinct muscle transcriptomic and metabolic signature. Specifically, we demonstrated that ZMP, an AMPK activator, is induced by exercise in a daytime-dependent manner. We continue to study various aspects of exercise physiology through the lens of circadian biology (Ezagouri et al., Cell Metabolism, 2019; Adamovich et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 2021.).

Establishing a system for studying the effect of dissolved gases (oxygen/carbon dioxide) on cyanobacteria clock

Area: 
Life Sciences
Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Studying circadian clock communication through exosomes mediated signaling

Area: 
Life Sciences
Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Examining the metabolic consequences and disease states due to misalignment between feeding-activity and disrupted circadian clock

Area: 
Life Sciences
Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Clocks resetting How the clock integrates different resetting cues? Are there differences in resetting capacity between different cell types? How different pharmaceutics influence the clock? Can it be harnessed to improve therapy?

Area: 
Life Sciences
Monday, November 1, 2021

Our lab has a longstanding interest in circadian clock resetting. We previously have identified and characterized novel resetting cues such as hypoxia and CO2. Recently, we have developed a new method to study resetting agents in vitro in an efficient and high-throughput manner, dubbed Circa-SCOPE. The method allows screening of multiple drugs in parallel to identify which affects the clock and how. Hence, it opens the door to a wide range of basic and translational research opportunities.

Oxygen and Circadian Clocks How does chronic exposure to hypoxia, as occurs with people living at high altitude, affects the human clock? How oxygen is connected to exercise performance and is there a time preference for high altitude training? (Tripartite model for performance: Clocks, oxygen, and exercise) How does HIF-1a endogenously integrate with circadian clock complexes during the circadian cycle? How do HIF-1a and BMAL1 regulate rhythmic transcriptome?

Area: 
Life Sciences
Saturday, January 1, 2022

We demonstrated that low-amplitude oxygen cycles, which mimic the daily physiological cycles in oxygen levels observed in rodents, can reset the clock in a HIF-1a-dependent manner (Adamovich et al., Cell Metabolism 2017). Subsequently, we showed that oxygen and carbon dioxide rhythms are circadian clock controlled and differentially directed by behavioral signals (Adamovich et al., Cell Metabolism 2019). More recently we found that hypoxic conditions, as occur in sleep apnea, elicit circadian misalignment between clocks in different peripheral organs (Manella et al., P.N.A.S. 2020). We continue our venture to study the cross-talk between oxygen and circadian clocks at different levels.