The Duca lab is extremely interested in how dietary and environmental exposures impact the development of obesity and diabetes. Specifically, using a variety of sophisticated in-vivo approaches, our lab examines how gut-brain signaling influence both energy and glucose homeostasis either via the peripheral nervous system or acting at the brain via circulating factors. We are extremely interested in how different dietary components, like fat, sugar, and fiber, impact metabolic homeostasis, and how the gut microbiome mediates these impacts. We study how probiotics, prebiotics, or metabolites produced from the gut microbiome affect host metabolism either directly at the intestine, or remotely at the peripheral nervous system, liver, or brain. Additionally, we examine how exposure to different environmental xenobiotics, like herbicides, pesticides, or antimicrobials impact the gut microbiome and subsequent host health. More recently, we have begun exploring how the gut-brain axis bidirectionally regulates development of certain cancers. Overall, our goal is to better understand the role of gut-brain signaling on host health, and to understand how diet and other environmental exposures impact the gut microbiome, with the hope of developing novel targeted therapeutics to treat obesity, diabetes, and cancer.
