Gould lab

Physiology and Metabolism Laboratory

: Areas of interest

Nutrition and other environmental factors shape our metabolism and affect our health. We investigate the interactions between the environment during early life and the genes that influence metabolism and ageing.

We are interested in how the environment influences physiology and metabolism and how this impacts upon health. Current work focuses on identifying the protective mechanisms that allow developing animals to cope with environmental challenges such as malnutrition and oxidative stress. This research aims to discover genes and molecular pathways that are relevant for metabolic and age-related diseases.

Much of our research utilises the fruit fly Drosophila, a model organism that shares many genes with humans and has contributed to our understanding of several different aspects of health and disease. We are also following up some of our most significant Drosophila findings in mammalian models. The lab uses a wide variety of experimental approaches including genetics, confocal microscopy, imaging mass spectrometry and metabolomics.