Assoc. Dr. Nilay Yapıcı, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University,
Nilay Yapıcı is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University and a Nancy & Peter Meinig Family Investigator. Dr.Yapıcı graduated from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Boğaziçi University, and worked with Dr Barry Dickson at the Molecular Pathology Research Institute (IMP) for her doctoral degree from the University of Vienna in 2008. Dr Yapıcı completed her postdoctoral researches at Rockefeller University in New York with Dr Leslie Vosshall. In 2016, she transferred to Cornell University as an Assistant Professor. Her research focuses on understanding how animals integrate their physiological state and external sensory stimuli from the environment into their metabolic decision process. Her lab uses a variety of techniques, including the fly (Drosophila melanogaster), a genetically traceable model organism, and high-resolution quantitative measurements of behavior, multi-photon functional imaging, and neural circuit tracking. She has been awarded the EMBO Long-Term Fellowship and the Human Frontiers (HFSP) Long-Term Fellowship as a postdoctoral fellow. Since becoming an independent researcher, she has been a research fellow at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Pew Scholars Biomedical Science Program, and the American Federation for Aging Research as a Junior Fellow.
Research Focus
“How the Nervous System Controls the Eating Instinct and Metabolism”
Focusing on the biology of hunger, Assoc. Dr. Nilay Yapıcı researches the mechanisms of action of the neural networks in the brain controlling food intake. In her laboratory she conducts research to identify the nerve cells in the brain that govern food intake decisions and to understand how the activities of these cells change during the desire to eat. As a result of this research, it is aimed to solve the mechanism that leads to excessive consumption of certain foods.
Key references
- Yapici, N., Cohn, R., Schusterreiter, C., Ruta, V., & Vosshall, L. B. (2016). A taste circuit that regulates ingestion by integrating food and hunger signals. Cell, 165(3), 715-729.
- Yapici, N., Kim, Y. J., Ribeiro, C., & Dickson, B. J. (2007). A receptor that mediates the post-mating switch in Drosophila reproductive behavior. Nature, 451, 33-37.
