Why do we sleep?
Why we sleep remains one of the most enduring mysteries in science. Sleep is homeostatically regulated where the duration of wakefulness drives subsequent sleep. Here we aim to determine how waking experience is sensed to trigger sleep and how sleep restores the brain? How the circadian clock interacts with sleep homeostasis? How impaired sleep lead to human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease?
why do we sleep?
Why we sleep remains one of the most enduring mysteries in science. Sleep is homeostatically regulated where the duration of wakefulness drives subsequent sleep. Here we aim to determine how waking experience is sensed to trigger sleep and how sleep restores the brain? How the circadian clock interacts with sleep homeostasis? How impaired sleep lead to human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease?
Research
Nearly every organism examined, even the jellyfish that lacks a centralized nervous system, exhibits a restorative sleep-like state. While asleep, we cannot eat, mate, defend ourselves from predators or care for our young. Inadequate sleep contributes to brain disease such as Alzheimer’s and depression, and even diseases outside of the brain, such as diabetes and obesity. Sleep is homeostatically regulated, i.e., sleep is driven by the duration and intensity of prior waking experience. Our principal goals are to identify the neuronal and molecular components of the sleep homeostat, to understand how those components cooperate to sense and control sleep-wake state, and to reveal how molecular and neural homeostatic pathways impact brain function, health, and disease. Our strategy employs genetic tools primarily in the fruit fly Drosophila to dissect, manipulate and monitor the homeostatic machinery. This approach builds on our research to understand the molecular basis of circadian (~24 h) behavior which have revealed sleep mechanisms conserved between invertebrates and vertebrates and incorporates work in both mice and humans.
Circadian Rhythms
Circadian clocks dictate when we wake up and when we fall asleep. Using molecular to behavioral approaches primarily in the fruit fly we aim to reveal the molecular and neuronal mechanisms by which circadian clocks keep time and convey that information to control sleep/wake? We are also determining the mechanistic role of disrupted circadian clocks in neurodevelopmental (e.g. autism) and neurodegenerative (e.g. Huntington’s disease disorders.
Sleep Homeostasis
The elusive sleep homeostat drives sleep as a function of prior wakefulness. How does the homeostat sense waking experience, trigger sleep and restore the brain to a baseline healthy state? By combining genetics, genomics, real-time imaging, and high resolution behavior analysis, we aim to identify the locus of the sleep homeostat and understand the molecular mechanisms that govern homeostat function. We are also determining how disrupted sleep can contribute to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Humans: Diagnostics/Jet Lag
Disrupted sleep and circadian rhythms have been increasingly associated with neural (depression and Alzheimer’s) and even non-neural disorders (diabetes and obesity). Here we are combining RNA-sequencing with machine learning algorithms to discover biomarker signatures of sleep and circadian disorders. We are also using publicly available data to assess the effects of sleep/circadian disruption on athletic performance.
Team
Ravi Allada
Principal Investigator
MD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
BA, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
On his way to becoming a medical doctor, Ravi decided to take a year (and then two) off during medical school to do research at the NIH. There he caught the research ”bug” and began his career-long interest in sleep, working on mechanisms of general anesthesia in the fruit fly Drosophila. After completing his M.D and a short residency in Clinical Pathology, he did his postdoctoral training with Nobel laureate Michael Rosbash, cloning the core circadian clock gene Clock in Drosophila. He joined the faculty at Northwestern in 2000 where his lab has discovered core gears of the circadian clock, how those gears drive sleep and wake, and how those pathways are linked to neurodegenerative disease. He applies similar approaches to reveal the molecular basis of the sleep homeostat, key to understanding the elusive function of sleep. In his spare time, he has served or is serving on various Boards including for the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, the Sleep Research Society and the NIH Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board.
Tomas Andreani
PhD Graduate Student
Bachelors, Pitzer College
Tomas received his bachelors at Pitzer College in Southern California but his first taste of science was at Brown University under Dr. Suzanne de la Monte studying the role of nitrosamines and alcohol on neurodevelopment. His love of learning and teaching inspired him to pursue a PhD in neuroscience through the Northwestern University interdepartmental neuroscience (NUIN) program. His work in the Allada lab focuses on the cellular and molecular correlates of sleep homeostasis and how waking experience translates to sleep drive.
Wenhao Cao
Research Technologist
MS in Biotechnology, Northwestern University
BS in Biochemical Engineering, Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium
Wenhao grew up in China and went to Belgium for his undergraduate study. After living in Europe for several years he decided that U.S. would be the next place to explore. While studying engineering at Northwestern, he found his interests in neurodegenerative disease by accident and joined the Allada lab to work on Huntington’s Disease for his graduate research. He is now a lab technician working on the ENCODE Project. He loves travelling and experiencing different culture.
Vanessa Hernandez
Masters Student
BS in Psychology, Arizona State University
BS in Biology, Arizona State University
Vanessa pursued concurrent undergraduate degrees in Biology and Psychology from Arizona State University. Currently, she is part of the Neurobiology Master’s Program. She is interested in studying the interaction between sleep, circadian rhythm disruption, and Alzheimer’s Disease. If you have any questions about her experience in the Master’s Program, please feel free to reach out.
Bridget Lear
Research Associate Professor
BS University of California at Los Angeles
PhD University of Chicago
As a Ph.D. student, Bridget studied nervous system development and evolution with Dr. Nipam Patel. She then moved to the field of circadian rhythms, where she has focused on understanding the neural mechanisms regulating circadian behavior. As a postdoctoral fellow (Allada lab), Bridget helped identify the receptor for the PDF neuropeptide, a critical component of clock neuron communication in Drosophila. Her postdoctoral work also established an important role for the sodium leak channel Narrow Abdomen (aka NALCN) in circadian neuron output. As a faculty member (U. of Iowa 2010-2018; Northwestern U. 2009-10, 2018-present) she has continued to study the regulation and function of the Narrow Abdomen ion channel complex in the circadian system. She has also focused on understanding the complex relationship between neuronal network communication, environmental input, and circadian behavioral output.
Zhichun Lin
Masters Student
BS in Biological Science & Psychology, University of Connecticut
Zhichun, aka Michael, graduated from the University of Connecticut. His grandmother has been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease for years. So he decided to focus his study on Alzheimer in order to help his grandmother and many other people who are also suffering from this disease. Currently, he is still learning all kinds of stuff in the Allada lab, studying the relationship between Alzheimer’s Disease, circadian rhythm disruption and sleep quality.
Eugene Nyamugenda
Postdoctoral Fellow
PhD, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Eugene is from Rwanda. After high school, he received a presidential scholarship to study for a bachelor’s degree at Hendrix College in Conway Arkansas. After receiving a BA in Biochemistry and molecular biology, He enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Eugene’s Ph.D. thesis was on identifying neurons of the hypothalamus that are the target of the damage of lipid stress observed in diet-induced obesity. In Allada Lab, Eugene is interested in many things. Chief among them are studying the molecular function of sleep in alleviating neurological diseases, identifying genes and pathways important for the function of sleep in slowing down Alzheimer’s disease, and anything that involves genetic manipulation because it is fun. Outside the lab, He enjoys running, lifting weights (mostly his children), eating anything that is not vegetables, and hanging out with his wife and
Jack Qin
Masters Student
MBS, University of Melbourne, Australia
BS, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
BS, Central China Normal University
Jack did his undergraduate in both China and Australia majoring in Biotechnology, he was intrigued by Neuroscience since his sophomore year, especially neural diseases studies. Now he’s doing a project about the interactions between circadian rhythms and Huntington’s disease. He loves music, especially classical ones. and was a violinist in his undergraduate university’s symphony orchestra.
Clark Rosensweig
Postdoctoral Fellow
PhD, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
BA, Harvard University
Clark grew up in a sleepy beach community in South Florida. After college, he dropped out of science to pursue a career in stand up comedy, then dropped out of stand up comedy to pursue a career in science. As a graduate student in Carla Green’s lab, he performed structure/function studies of the circadian repressors Cryptochrome 1 and 2 and identified a subtle structural divergence between the two with a major role in determining periodicity in the mammalian circadian clock. Clark brought his penchant for biochemistry to the Allada lab to determine why we sleep. He has subsequently become a more interesting dinner party guest.
Shiju Sisobhan
Postdoctoral Fellow
I grew up in the beautiful state of Kerala (India) where I received my bachelor’s and master’s degree in electronics engineering. Then I relocate to Delhi, where I did my Ph.D. in computational biology under Dr. K. Sriram. My work in Ph.D. studies focused on the mathematical modeling of the mammalian circadian rhythm. In the Allada lab, I am focusing on developing computational tools for analyzing sleep and circadian behavior of Drosophila and human being. I am also working on bioinformatics analysis on RNA seq data from sleep-deprived Drosophila.
Alec Victorsen
Research Technologist
BS, Iowa State University
MS, Iowa State University
Alec became familiar with recombineering, a technique for sequence specifically modifying large DNA molecules, while studying antibiotic persistence in Salmonella at Iowa State. This technique was instrumental to his early work on the modERN project. He currently manages the lab’s contribution to the modERN project, with the goal of assaying all transcription factors by ChIP-seq in Drosophila melanogaster.
Gregory Wesseling
Research Technologist
Masters, Grand Valley State University
Bachelors, Central Michigan University
In graduate school at GVSU, Greg dissected larval drosophila brains to investigate histamine expression in deletion mutants generated through transposon-excision mutagenesis. When Greg joined the Allada lab, he dissected adult drosophila brains to investigate PER expression. Greg now works on project ENCODE to help document where transcription factors act in the fly genome. Before graduate school, Greg spent a summer at the University of Cambridge to study evolution. In his spare time, Greg enjoys watching college football and basketball.
Elizabeth Williamson
Research Technologist
BA in Biochemistry & Biophysics, Northwestern University
Elli studied biochemistry & biophysics at Northwestern, and is particularly interested in bioinorganic chemistry. Before working in a lab, she was a professional illustrator. In her free time, she likes to play board games and photograph insects.
Melanie Zhang
PhD Graduate Student
BS in Neuroscience & Behavioral Biology, Emory University
BA in Music, Emory University
Melanie is interested in studying the interaction between sleep, circadian rhythm disruption and Alzheimer’s Disease. She is also a brain tumor and brain surgery survivor, so ask her anything.
Alumni
coming soon…
