$1.7M Grant Advances Stem Cell Research and Opens Ongoing Opportunities for Undergraduate and Graduate Research

By Stephanie Godward, Communications and Marketing Director, College of Arts & Sciences 

Assistant Professor of Biology Rafael Demarco recently received a $1.7 million R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which will fund his lab for the next five years as he continues to examine the impact of fat metabolism on stem cells. 

“What we have found in fat metabolism is that once you start accumulating fat in the stem cell microenvironment it is detrimental for their maintenance,” he said. 

Demarco said receiving the grant gives him a sense of validation and security, knowing that he will have the funding needed to continue his research alongside undergraduate and graduate students.  

This is the first R01 grant the Biology Department has received in many years. 

“Dr. Demarco's R01 is a strong signal that the research coming out of our department is being recognized at the national level, and that matters for how we're seen across the university and beyond,” said Biology Department Chair Linda Fuselier. “I hope it encourages our students and early-career researchers to think ambitiously about their own scientific trajectories. This is exactly the kind of work we want UofL Biology to be known for.” 

Demarco’s work centers on stem cells in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Demarco’s lab uses the fruit fly as a model organism because its genetics are simpler to study while still sharing many important classes of genes with humans. For example, a protein called STAT is important for many biological processes, including stem cell regulation. Humans have several different forms of this protein, while fruit flies only have one. 

“If you are going from a genetics approach and you are trying to remove this gene, or modify it to see what happens to the cell, you only have to handle one. It’s easier to see the impact and hopefully apply it to humans,” Demarco explained. 

Understanding the mechanisms that regulate cells could ultimately inform human health research as scientists explore ways not only to extend a person’s lifespan, but also to improve quality of life as people age. 

“Adult stem cells are those progenitor cells that keep supporting our tissues and organs to function. These cells are the reason why we are still alive, because the majority of cells in our body turn over normally,” Demarco said. “In our intestines, every week, the absorptive cells that form the barrier between the food you are ingesting and what you need to absorb, they turn over once a week. If we don’t have progenitor cells constantly generating them, we would not have an intestine anymore, and we would not be alive.” 

Understanding how stem cells are regulated could eventually help researchers determine how to keep them functioning as the body ages. 

“Can we understand the basic regulators of stem cells? Can we take advantage of them to understand what would make them functional for longer? Living longer is great, but living longer if you are bedridden for the last two decades of your life is not so great,” Demarco said. “So, making your stem cells functional in an age setting would be really good, because if your organs are happy, you are happy, you are healthy.” 

Demarco’s lab will use the grant to investigate the different mechanisms that regulate stem cells and their surrounding support cells, with the goal of identifying ways to keep these cellular environments healthier for longer periods of time. 

“We have a lot of metabolic disorders that occur and the effects on stem cells are underappreciated,” Demarco said. “When we think of for instance, diabetes, we think of the pancreas where insulin is secreted, we think of levels of obesity or cardiovascular disease, and we don’t think about necessarily how our own stem cells are perhaps suffering from these changes. If we can perhaps understand how they are being impacted and come up with strategies to counterbalance these bad influences, that would be a good thing.”