Contact information
01865 272171
Research groups
Colleges
Latest Features
'Mouse Brains Appear to Eavesdrop on Their Fat' (The Scientist, September 2022)
The paper, 'Brain-Sparing Sympathofacilitators Mitigate Obesity without Adverse Cardiovascular Effects' has been featured in:
- Alan Morris (2020): Unravelling novel weight loss mechanisms. Nature Reviews Endocrinology.
- Jung Dae Kim and Sabrina Diano (2020): A Sympathetic Treatment for Obesity. Cell Metabolism.
The paper, 'Sympathetic neuron-associated macrophages contribute to obesity by importing and metabolizing norepinephrine' has been featured in:
- Stefan Jung: Year in Review — Macrophages and monocytes in 2017: Macrophages and monocytes: of tortoises and hares. Nature Reviews Immunology 2017
- Conor A. Bradley (2017). Specialized macrophages contribute to obesity. Nature Reviews Endocrinology.
- Making Fat Mice Lean: Novel Immune Cells Control Neurons Responsible For Fat Breakdown. ScienMag.
- Wei Wong (14 Nov 2017). Fat expansion through norepinephrine catabolism. Editor's Choice, Science Signalling.
- Seth Thomas Scanlon (17 Nov 2017), Unusual macrophages contribute to obesity. Editor's Choice, Science
- Guttenplan, Kevin A. et al. (2018) Play It Again, SAM: Macrophages Control Peripheral Fat Metabolism, Trends in Immunology
- Michael P Czech (7 Nov 2017), Macrophages dispose of catecholamines in adipose tissue. Nature Medicine
The paper, 'Sympathetic neuro-adipose connections mediate leptin-driven lipolysis' has been featured in:
- Johan Ruud & Jens Bruening (2015). Metabolism: Light on leptin link to lipolysis. Nature
- Natasha Bray (2015). Zapping fat in WAT, Nature Reviews Neuroscience
- News and Views (2015). A closer look at the nerves that slim down your fat cells, Science
- Luis Varela, Tamas L. Horvath (2015). A Sympathetic View on Fat by Leptin, Cell
- Qingchun Tong (2015) Exceptional F1000 Physiology, Technical Advance
- Mark Bothwell (2015) Very Good F1000 Neuroscience, New Finding
The first PhD student of the Domingos lab to graduate, Roksana Pirzgalska, has been featured in:
The second PhD student of the Domingos lab to graduate, Ines Mahu, has been featured in Cell Metabolism:
Ana Domingos
Professor of Neuroscience
- Tutor of Medicine at Lady Margaret Hall
- OUI Innovation Champion
The Domingos laboratory researches neuroimmune mechanisms underlying obesity. They discovered neuro-adipose junctions, between white adipocytes and sympathetic neurons, that are necessary and sufficient for fat mass reduction via norepinephrine (NE) signalling. Moreover, they discovered Sympathetic neuron-Associated Macrophages (SAMs) that import and metabolize NE. Abrogation of SAM function promotes long-term amelioration of obesity independently of food intake. These findings inspired the development of a new class of anti-obesity compounds named sympathofacilitators, which do not enter the brain, nor have the typical cardiovascular side effects of centrally acting sympathomimetic drugs. Sympathofacilitator drugs act as an energy sink by coupling thermogenesis to active heat dissipation. Ana Domingos is a member of the advisory board of Cell Metabolism and her lab has been funded by HHMI, Wellcome Trust, ERC, HFSP, EMBO, among others.
Speaking at
Cell Symposia, "Neurometabolism in health and disease", Singapore, April 26–28 2023. Submit abstract. Register now.
GRC Frontiers of Science, "Mechanisms that Underlie Flexible Neural Coding", Les Diablerets Conference Center, Eurotel Victoria, Les Diablerets, VD, Switzerland, May 21 - 26 2023. Apply now.
DNF Symposium 2023, "Multifaceted Brain Communication", The Department of Fundamental Neurosciences (DNF), UNIL, Lausanne, Switzerland, September 15 2023. Registration opens on May 1 2023.
Cell Symposia, "Molecular mechanisms and integrative physiology of obesity", Shanghai, China, October 13 - 15 2023. Submit abstract. Register now.
GRC, "Neuroimmunology in Organismic Function: Shared Mechanisms and Reciprocal Interactions", California, USA, Postponed.
Organisation of conferences
Keystone Symposia - Neuroimmunometabolism - Obesity at the Crossroads between Neuroimmunity and Immunometabolism - Joint Meeting with Interconnection between the Gut, Brain and Microbiome for Metabolic Disease, October 07 - 10, 2022
ECRO- XXXI, 13-16 September 2021, Cascais, Portugal. View the Program on ECRO online.
EMBO Meeting - Neural control of metabolism and eating behaviour. Check out some pictures from the event.
Past Meetings
Keystone Symposia, "Adipose Tissue: Energizing Good Fat / Bioenergetics in Health and Diseases", January 15-20 2023, Keystone, Colorado, USA.
BDI - MDO 2022, "Metabolic Diseases; Breakthrough Discoveries in Diabetes & Obesity", October 23-26 2022.
Key publications
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Journal article
Martinez-Sanchez N. et al, (2022), Neuron, 110, 3597 - 3626