Washington University in St Louis · BiologyBrown Fat Insight Lab
David W Piston · Saint Louis, Missouri
Research Focus
Dr. David Piston's lab at Washington University focuses on understanding and developing treatments for diabetes and autoimmune diseases. They are particularly interested in how proteins from brown fat can regulate insulin levels and glucagon secretion to improve diabetes management. Additionally, they study the role of specific ion channels in the immune response, which could lead to new therapies for chronic inflammation and cancer.
diabetesbrown adipose tissueglucagoninnate immune responseTRPV2nidogen-2autoimmune diseasescancerinsulin receptorextracellular matrix
Research Aims
5AIM 01Investigate how nidogen-2 from brown adipose tissue affects glucagon secretion and insulin receptor activation.
AIM 02Identify the specific fragments of nidogen-2 that are responsible for reversing diabetes phenotypes.
AIM 03Explore the role of TRPV2 in regulating the innate immune response via cGAS/STING signaling.
AIM 04Determine how TRPV2 interacts with STING and its implications for autoimmune diseases.
AIM 05Examine the therapeutic potential of targeting glucagon secretion for diabetes treatment.
Skills the Lab Values
cell cultureanimal modelsmolecular cloningprotein purificationWestern blotimmunohistochemistryRNA sequencingcalcium imagingtransfection techniquesbioinformatics
Output against the department
Publications354top 14% of dept.146th of 1,033
this lab
most publishedleast published
Citations22ktop 18% of dept.182nd of 1,033
this lab
most citedleast cited
Career totals from OpenAlex, compared against labs that share a department. A department spans everything from one paper to tens of thousands, so bar heights are on a log scale — otherwise the largest lab would flatten every other bar to a line.