Labs

We are a husband-wife research team with a passion for blood-brain barrier research.

Our goal is to discover new therapeutic targets to repair barrier dysfunction in CNS disorders and translate our findings into the clinic.

Our research goal is to determine how the brain, kidneys, and pancreatic β-cells sense glucose levels to regulate whole-body glucose and energy homeostasis.

The Despa Labs at the University of Kentucky consist of a diverse and passionate research team. Our research team includes individuals in several different stages of their research careers, enabling unique perspectives and shared discovery to shape our research breakthroughs.

The focus of the lab is to identify novel neurobiological and behavioral mechanisms to guide the treatment of addiction, including glutamatergic, dopaminergic, neuroimmune, and ovarian hormone mechanisms underlying addiction to various drugs of dependence during young adulthood and during the female reproductive transition of menopause.

We investigate metabolic tissues like liver, adipose, and muscle in regulating metabolic dysfunction and cardiovascular diseases. We have studied areas of stress hormones, nutrients, kinases, and nuclear receptors and their regulation in obesity and diabetes.

The lab is dedicated to helping end the threat of breast cancer. We are focused on uncovering the molecular mechanism whereby nuclear, hormone receptors regulate the growth and progression of tumors. These studies will lead us to identifying novel therapeutic targets that we can exploit in the treatment or prevention of breast cancer.

We are interested in the intersection between obesity-associated co-morbidites like type 2 diabetes and periodontal disease, and the immune system. Other projects are in age-associated inflammation.

Our primary focus has been on the role of reactive astrocytes in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and AD-related dementias (ADRD). While we lean heavily on mouse models, all of our work is strongly rooted in human disease and frequently makes use of human postmortem biospecimens from the world-class brain bank at the SBCoA/UK-ADRC.

Our goal is to unravel the functions of ABL kinases in solid tumor cells. Although ABL kinases are known drivers of human leukemia, emerging data also implicates the kinases in a large number of solid tumor types where they promote diverse processes such as proliferation, survival, cytoskeletal reorganization, cellular polarity, and more.

While the lab started focusing on neuronal calcium dysergulation in aging and investigating interactions with peripheral metabolic diseases as seen in diabetes and hyperlipidemia, we moved quickly into studies directly investigating the impact of insulin on neuronal calcium.

The lab is concentrating on understanding of key biological and signaling aspects of carcinomas during tumor growth, drug resistance and recurrence, as well as identification of novel therapeutic targets and related chemical agents.