The Airola lab is broadly interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms that regulate lipid metabolism and transport, and developing therapeutics that target these pathways. Details about specific projects are listed below:

1. Structure and regulation of lipid metabolism and transport
Cells require coordinated generation, breakdown, and tranport of lipids at specific times and places. Consequently, lipid metabolism and transport is highly regulated. Our research aims to understand how lipid modifying enzymes and lipid transport proteins function and are regulated in molecular detail. Grant support: NIGMS R35GM128666

2. Lipid droplets and triglycerides
Humans store energy long-term as fat in the form of triglycerides, which can be broken down into free fatty acids to produce energy. Inside cells, triglycerides are stored in lipid droplets: a unique organelle with a phospholipid monolayer surrounding a neutral lipid oil core. We are interested in understanding how the oil membrane environment of lipid droplets affects the structure of proteins and catalytic functions of enzymes.

3. Therapeutic development
Lipid metabolism and transport presents promising avenues for the treatment of human disease, pain management, and infections by pathogens. We are involved in active collaborations to develop new small molecule inhibitors that target lipid metabolism and transport. Our current focus is on new antifungal agents and analgesics. Grant support: NIAID R01AI187131

4. Characterizing novel lipid pathways in bacteria
The outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria contains lipopolysaccharide that protects them from environmental stressors. Recently, non-canonical anionic sphingolipids have been found to functionally replace the lipopolysaccharide of certain gram-negative bacteria. We are biochemically and structurally characterizing the enzymes of this novel pathway in Caulobacter crescentus. This work has revealed unexpected enzyme functions and the structural basis for enantiomeric substrate specificity. Grant Support: NSF award# 2515533

5. Development of lipid biosensors
The ability to monitor the production and subcellular localization of lipids is critical to understand lipid function. However, lipids, unlike like proteins and RNA, are not genetically encoded, which thus necessitates biosensors to fill this technological gap. We seek to develop new biosensors that can be used to track the generation and breakdown of lipids within cells. Our approach involves both characterization of endogenous lipid binding domains and de novo design of lipid binding biosensors using artificial intelligence.

If you are a new graduate student interested in learning more about current research areas and available projects, please email us at michael.airola@stonybrook.edu to discuss and/or setup a rotation. If you are prospective postdoc interested in our work, please email a CV, cover letter, and a list of three references.