Matthew Cottam
Graduate Student, Hasty laboratory, Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
I am a 5th year graduate student in Alyssa Hasty’s lab. My interests are at the interface of physiology and immunology and I am focused on using bioinformatic approaches to study the relationship between immune cells and metabolic perturbations. My project in the lab is to study adaptive immunity in the context of weight loss and weight regain, which we refer to as weight cycling. To date, little work has been done to describe and define changes in T cell activity within adipose tissue during significant weight changes. In the Hasty lab, I am working to understand the complex interplay between adipocytes, macrophages, and T cells that induces adipose tissue T cell accumulation, activation, tolerance, and hypersensitivity.