Andreas Stahl

Professor

Dept of Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology

Research Group URL

http://nature.berkeley.edu/stahllab

Contact

astahl@berkeley.edu

(510) 642-6900

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Research Expertise and Interest

metabolism, obesity, adipose tissue, brown fat, thermogenesis, tissue engineering, diabetes, fatty acid transport, fatty acid, stem cells, microphysiological systems

Research Description

Andreas Stahl is a professor in the Department of Nutritional Science & Toxicology. The overarching goal of the Stahl laboratory is to advance human health by re-engineer lipid fluxes in the context of obesity-related disorders to protect certain tissues, such as the liver, from detrimental effects of ectopic lipid deposition and to generate metabolically highly active tissues that can serve as a save destination for excess fatty acids. To this end, they are investigating molecular mechanisms governing lipid uptake, particularly for fatty acids and CoQ, hepatobiliary diseases, and adipocyte biology. Toward the latter, they have been working on novel bioengineering based approaches to expand and activate brown adipose tissue. Further, to facilitate the assessment of altered nutrient fluxes, they have been developing and testing novel bioluminescent imaging approaches to quantitatively assess macro- and micronutrients in vivo and have been working as part of a multidisciplinary team toward modeling human metabolic function and disease using iPSC based microphysiological systems, aka organs-on-a-chip, for adipocytes, hepatocytes, and islets.

In the News

graphic of white fat and brown fat energy storage and burn

Brown fat flexes its muscle to burn energy -- and calories

Scientists have discovered that the same kind of fat cells that help newborn babies regulate their body temperature could be a target for weight-loss drugs in adults.

Smelling your food makes you fat

Our sense of smell is key to the enjoyment of food, so it may be no surprise that in experiments at the University of California, Berkeley, obese mice who lost their sense of smell also lost weight.

Engineered hot fat implants reduce weight gain in mice

Scientists at UC Berkeley have developed a novel way to engineer the growth and expansion of energy-burning “good” fat, and then found that this fat helped reduce weight gain and lower blood glucose levels in mice.

Grapefruit juice stems weight gain in mice fed a high-fat diet

Fad diets come and go, but might there be something to the ones that involve consuming grapefruit and grapefruit juice? New research found that mice fed a high-fat diet gained less weight when they drank grapefruit juice instead of water.

Fatty-liver disease discovery promises new treatments for diabetes, other problems

Two types of naturally produced substances — one of them a bear bile acid — reduce the uptake of fat by the liver, opening the door to the development of new treatments for fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes, according to a new study by researchers at UC Berkeley.