Dr. Danielle Schmitt
UCLA
Friday, March 6, 2026
12:00 Noon
Room 120 – Meyerhoff Chemistry Building
Host: Dr. Songon An
Illuminating Compartmentalized Metabolic Regulation in Single Cells
Each of the trillions of cells in our bodies need to undergo some degree of metabolism, the series of biochemical reactions essential to sustain life. Metabolism requires precise coordinated regulation across scales, from the subcellular organelle, to neighboring cells, to tissue, to the whole body. Dysregulation of metabolism results in diseases including cancer, diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and more. The Schmitt Lab is interested in understanding how metabolism is spatiotemporally regulated within the cell at distinct subcellular locations, and how this regulation is perturbed in diseases with metabolic implications, like cancer. We develop genetically encoded tools to measure and manipulate metabolism and cell function to (1) understand how the signaling networks regulating metabolism are spatiotemporally localized and the downstream effects of localized activity; and (2) to study compartmentalized metabolic flux in health and disease. In this talk I will describe ongoing efforts within the lab to study metabolic signaling networks and develop new microscopy-based tools for imaging metabolic regulation with high spatiotemporal resolution.