Lingjun Li, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemistry, Janis Apinis Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, received a 4% ranking on her NIH R01 grant renewal application to continue her innovative research on the development and application of mass spectrometry-based technology and strategies to understand the roles of signaling peptides in feeding behavior.
The growing incidence of eating disorders and obesity, and their associated health costs have led to intensive research efforts directed at understanding the mechanisms and signaling pathways that control and regulate food intake. Despite decades of work on individual neurochemical systems, the general organizational principles understanding neuromodulation are still poorly understood. A systematic view of all molecular players involved in the process is lacking. To address this critical knowledge and technological gap, Li and her team propose to develop new bioanalytical methods to elucidate the complex identities and functional roles of neuropeptides in food intake via combined mass spectrometric and physiological approaches.