Ana Domingos

The Domingos laboratory researches neuroimmune mechanisms underlying obesity. They discovered the neuro-adipose junction, a synapse-like connection between white adipocytes and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). They found that this neuro-adipose junction is necessary and sufficient for fat mass reduction via norepinephrine (NE) signaling (Cell, 2015*; NatureComm, 2017). They then discovered Sympathetic neuron-Associated Macrophages (SAMs) that directly import and metabolize NE. Abrogation of SAM function promotes long-term amelioration of obesity independently of food intake (Nature Medicine, 2017**).

Ana Domingos is funded by HHMI, the Welcome Trust, ERC, HFSP, EMBO. She is a mathematics MSc and a neurobiology PhD advised Leslie Vosshall at The Rockefeller University. She did her postdoc with Jeffrey Friedman at the Rockefeller University. In the fall of 2013 she became a Principal Investigator at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), Oeiras, PT. In 2018 she became an Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Depart of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Univ.Oxford, & Medicine Tut. Fellow Lady Margaret Hall College UK.