Speaker: John Vaughen, Sandler Fellow and assistant professor of anatomy at University of California, San Francisco

Title: "Deciphering the brain lipidome: From fats to functions"

Abstract: Vaughen is captivated by lipids, amphiphilic macromolecules that dynamically signal and organize biochemical reactions across organelles. While we are unearthing a large combinatorial diversity of lipids across myriad cells, our understanding of lipid functions remains fragmentary. Lipid metabolism first ensnared him during his Ph.D. at Stanford University (developmental biology). Under Tom Clandinin’s mentorship, Vaughen used Drosophila to dissect novel functions for a lipid hydrolase frequently mutated in Parkinson’s disease. These studies revealed that balanced sphingolipid metabolism tuned a diurnal pattern of extensive neurite growth and retraction in a circadian circuit by coupling glial catabolism with neural biosynthesis. His ongoing work combines genetics, lipidomics, microscopy, behavior, and biophysical modeling to probe the developing brain lipidome. Beginning in August 2024, John and his lab aim to 

1. Identify the enzymes and signaling cascades that generate appropriate brain lipidomes; 
2. Determine why and how specific lipids are deployed, such as in synaptic vesicles and glial ensheathments; and 
3. Develop genetic and mass-spectrometry tools to better quantitate and manipulate lipids in the brain, which often dysregulates its lipids during aging and disease

Host: Anurag Das, graduate student in the Bai Lab of the Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology