Patrycja Puchalska, PhD

Dr. Puchalska’s expertise spans metabolomics, computational analytics, and systems physiology. She focuses on cellular metabolism and inter-organ nutrient exchange in mouse models and in human participants. She explores dynamic shifts in ketone body, glucose, and fat metabolism in the central nervous system in response to obesity and diabetes, and during embryonic and neonatal stages, using novel mass spectrometry-based approaches and mouse models. She develops and deploys approaches to formally quantitate metabolite pools via liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry; perform stable isotope tracing into the metabolome; quantitatively speciate more than a dozen lipid classes via shotgun lipidomics; and perform metabolic flux analysis. She and her team are adept at vascular cannulations to study metabolism as well as primary culture of numerous cell types, including, macrophages, hepatocytes, and neurons from genetically modified mouse models. These approaches allow her and her team to identify novel mediators of inter-organ cross-talk that position the developing and adult brain to be poised for healthy outcomes.