Duncan NRI Yang He, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Section of Neurology, Baylor College of Medicine.
Principal Investigator, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas’s Children's Hospital.
Texas Children's Hospital, Faculty Scholar
Contact Information
Email: Yang.He@bcm.edu
Research focus
Interplay between the central nervous system and systemic energy homeostasis, neural mechanisms underlying the development of obesity.
Get to know Yang He, Ph.D.
Obesity serves as a pivotal risk factor for diabetes, fatty liver diseases, cardiovascular disorders, and cancer. Obesity arises from an imbalance between energy intake and expenditure, with surplus energy being stored as triglycerides in adipose tissue. This intricate regulation of food intake and energy utilization is predominantly orchestrated by the central nervous system (CNS). My lab focuses on the neural mechanisms for the regulation of energy homeostasis. The ultimate goal is to identify druggable targets for combating obesity and metabolic disease.
Liu H*, He Y*, Bai J, Zhang C... & Xu Y†. Hypothalamic Grb10 Suppresses Obesity by Enhancing Leptin Signaling. Nature Metabolism, 2023. doi: 10.1038/s42255-022-00701-x. PMID: 36593271.
He Y*, Brouwers B*, Liu H*, LiuH, Lawler K,…. & Xu Y†, Farooqi S 2†. Human loss-of-function variants in the Serotonin 2C receptor associated with obesity and maladaptive behavior. Nature Medicine, 2022 doi: 10.1038/s41591-022-02106-5. PMID: 36536256.
Li VL*, He Y*, Contrepois K, Liu H, ... & Xu Y†, Jonathan Long†. An exercise-inducible metabolite that suppresses feeding and obesity. Nature, 2022.doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04828-5.
He Y*, Liu H*, Yin N, et al. Barbadin potentiates long-term effects of lorcaserin on POMC neurons and weight loss. Journal of Neuroscience, 2021, 41(26): 5734-5746.
He Y*, Wei M*, Wu Y, Qin H, Li W, Ma X, Cheng J, et al. Amyloid β oligomers suppress excitatory transmitter release via presynaptic depletion of phosphatidylinositol-4, 5bisphosphate. Nature Communications 10, no. 1 (2019): 1193. PMID: 30867420.
* co-first author
