Ana Domingos

Ana I. Domingos is a Portuguese neuroscientist specialising in the treatment of obesity independently of food intake. Domingos is a full Professor of Neuroscience at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Domingos is also a fellow, tutor and the director of studies in medicine at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

A trained mathematician, Domingos began her research career by pursuing a Ph.D in neurobiology at Rockefeller University. Supervised by Leslie Voshall, Domingos studied the sensory systems facilitating our sense of smell. As a post-doctoral research scientist, Domingos worked under Jeffrey Friedman, investigating how ones metabolism can influence the brain circuitry involved in sweetener cravings.

Domingos founded her own laboratory in the [https://gulbenkian.pt/ciencia/homepage/igc/missao-visao-e-valores/ Gulbenkian Institute] in Portugal where she made a number of key discoveries. Firstly, her laboratory discovered that a hormone produced by fat, called leptin, interacts with the sympathetic nerves to control fat breakdown. Sympathetic nerves release a hormone called noradrenaline which is received by a molecular switch expressed by fat tissue, called a β-2 receptor. Activation of the β-2 receptor or "switch" causes the fat tissue to "burn off" as heat. Secondly, her laboratory was able to visualize how sympathetic neurons connect with fat tissue. Thirdly, the Domingos laboratory studied how "Pac-Man-like" immune cells close to sympathetic neurons, dubbed sympathetic associated macrophages, could contribute to obesity by absorbing the noradrenergic chemical signals sent by the sympathetic neurons to fat tissue.

Sympathomimetic drugs behave like the chemical signals produced by sympathetic neurons interacting with fat. Collaborating with scientists in The University of Cambridge, the Domingos' lab in Oxford hopes to improve upon sympathomimetics, by producing a class of compounds that do not interact with the central nervous or cardiovascular systems, thereby limiting side effects. These new and improved compounds are dubbed sympathofacilitators. To this end, the Domingos' group studies the circuit properties of sympathetic neural networks interact with fat and how they are regulated by immune cells, pioneering a new field of research coined ''Neuroimmunometabolism'' on which her lab has authored [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0896627322009461 reviews]. Provided by Wikipedia