Sugar-loving fruit bats' genes could point to new diabetes treatments, scientists say
Scientists are studying how fruit bats can handle such a sugary diet in order to potentially uncover new ways to manage humans' glucose levels.
Wei Gordon
Dr. Gordon is Assistant Professor of Biology at Menlo College. This is her first year teaching at Menlo College. Dr. Gordon went to graduate school to become an undergraduate professor and work at a student-focused institution. Prior to joining faculty, Dr. Gordon taught graduate courses at UC San Francisco and undergraduate courses at University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, and UC San Diego, as well as elementary courses at San Francisco public schools. At Menlo College, Dr. Gordon is focusing on improving STEM interest in STEM-underrepresented groups and connecting students to their surrounding biotechnology hub.
Dr. Gordon first began research at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, California, where she worked as a husbandry intern. She conducted an artificial reef habitation project with local swell sharks and launched an aquaponics education exhibit. Dr. Gordon went on to work as a husbandry intern in the lab of Dr. Deborah Yelon at UC San Diego, where she migrated to the laboratory bench to study zebrafish heart development. Dr. Gordon simultaneously worked in the lab of Dr. Maike Sander at Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine as a lab assistant and, later, the lab of Dr. Amro Hamdoun at Scripps Institution of Oceanography as an undergraduate researcher and URS (David Marc Belkin Memorial Research Scholarship for Environment and Ecology). While learning about drug transporters and embryonic development with sea urchins in Dr. Hamdoun's lab, Dr. Gordon pioneered a collaborative project between the labs of Dr. Hamdoun and Dr. Yelon, identifying a cell type in the zebrafish embryo that likely protects embryonic development from harmful small molecules (Gordon et al., Aquatic Toxicology, 2019).
As a graduate student, Dr. Gordon joined the lab of Dr. Nadav Ahituv at UC San Francisco to investigate the genetic factors underlying the evolution of frugivory (fruit-specialization) in mammals. By studying the DNA of mammals that adapted to high sugar diets, bats and primates, Dr. Gordon and her collaborators can identify novel DNA targets for therapies for metabolic diseases in humans like diabetes. Dr. Gordon utilized both comparative genomics and functional genomics techniques for her investigation, and she also traveled to Belize to work with bats and other bat researchers across the globe at the "Bat-a-thon." Dr. Gordon was awarded the NSF GRFP and also acquired an NIH EDGE CMT grant with Dr. Ahituv to advance her research. Dr. Gordon discovered many frugivory adaptations in the fruit bat kidney and pancreas, including differentially active genes and regulatory regions involved in fluid and electrolyte balance in the frugivore kidney and an increase in endocrine and a decrease in exocrine cells in the frugivore pancreas (Gordon and Baek et al., BioRxiv, 2023). More of Dr. Gordon's work will be published in the coming years.
Dr. Gordon's research at Menlo College will be on general biology education. She will be testing a variety of techniques and collecting data. Ultimately, she intends to use her genetics expertise to develop new courses at Menlo College that are in line with student interests and prepare students to become positive leaders of change in fast-growing biotechnological spaces of genomics, gene therapy, and pharma.
