Welcome
Metabolic & Biomedicine Lab (MBL), we study how environmental pollutants, lifestyle, and dietary factors disrupt metabolic homeostasis and drive the development of insulin resistance, obesity, diabetes, and related complications. Using integrated cellular and animal models alongside natural products research, we seek to uncover the mechanisms of metabolic disease and develop innovative strategies to restore and improve metabolic health.
Study Models
Zebrafish Adult & Embryos
Zebrafish share conserved metabolic pathways with mammals, developing a functional liver, pancreas, and intestine within days. Transparent larvae allow live visualization of fat deposition, neurological behaviour and glucose dynamics provides a unique among vertebrate models. Mutant and transgenic lines readily recapitulate obesity, fatty liver, and type 2 diabetes phenotypes, and high fecundity enables large-scale drug screening at low cost.
Rodent models
Mice share ~85% genomic similarity with humans and closely mimic human metabolic physiology. Diet-induced and genetic models reliably develop obesity, diabetes, and fatty liver, with decades of validated metabolic phenotyping tools — making them the most translatable vertebrate model for metabolic disease research.
Myotubes
Hepatocytes
Pancreatic cell line
Keratinocytes
Adipocytes
Neuronal cell line
Mammalian cell lines
Mammalian cell lines provide a controlled, cost-effective system to dissect cell-autonomous mechanisms metabolism and insulin signaling. Classic lines such as 3T3-L1 (adipocytes), HepG2 (hepatocytes), L6 (muscle), Keratinocytes etc. closely mimic key metabolic tissues, enabling high-throughput gene knockdown, drug treatment, and in vitro mechanistic studies.
Computational studies
We use computational approaches including molecular docking and network pharmacology to predict compound-target interactions and support experimental findings.