• Question: How did you decide that you wanted to study the generation of brown fat?

    Asked by anon-260023 to Sonia on 27 Sep 2020. This question was also asked by anon-260570.
    • Photo: Sonia Rodriguez

      Sonia Rodriguez answered on 27 Sep 2020:

      Hi Kayla! Thank you for your question.

      Brown fat is a great organ. It can burn fat and produce heat through a unique mechanism inside the cell and this is one of the systems animals use during hibernation to keep warm. If we can activate these cells in obese patients we might help them burn more fat and lose weight, so studying brown fat could help a lot of people.
      Moreover, the generation of brown fat is very interesting. The precursor cell, or the immature cell that can generate brown fat is the same as for muscle and it’d be great to learn how the same immature cell can differentiate in such different organs.

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