Dr Florian Merkle

Interests

My laboratory uses pluripotent stem cells to model human diseases that arise from the loss of aberrant function of neurons in the hypothalamus that regulate essential physiological and behavioural processes. In particular, obesity is thought to result from abnormal function of hypothalamic neurons that regulate food intake, and the sleep disorder obesity results from the specific loss of sleep-regulatory hypothalamic neurones. I recently developed methods to generate these hypothalamic neurone populations from human pluripotent stem cells, and edit their genomes to generate reporter cell lines and to introduce disease-causing mutations. Our laboratory combines these tools and interrogates the resulting cellular and molecular phenotypes using imaging, sequencing, and biochemical tools.

Outstanding graduate students or postdoctoral candidates interested in contributing to this work should contact me at fm436@medschl.cam.ac.uk.

Human stem cell derived hypothalamic neurones expressing the peptide hypocretin (HCRT also known as orexin) in green or melanin concentrating hormone (MCH) in red. HCRT neurones regulate sleep and are lost in narcolepsy, and MCH neurones promote feeding behaviour.
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Research Focus

Equipment

Calcium imaging

Cell culture

DREADDs

Fluorescence Microscopy

Immunohistochemistry

Microscopy

Optogenetics

Proteomics

RNAseq

Single-cell sequencing

Viral gene delivery