Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Michelle Bland, PhD, Associate Professor, Pharmacology
Transcript:
My lab uses fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, which is a great genetic model organism, to study how hormones like insulin and how infection control growth and metabolism in young animals. And one of the things that I really love about doing this research, or any research, is that I get to work with really creative people to solve complex problems.
My name is Michelle Bland. I'm an associate professor in the department of pharmacology at the UVA School of Medicine. And my lab studies how hormones like insulin control growth and metabolism. And on the flip side, we study how infection can derail the control of growth and metabolism by insulin signaling. And we do all of this using the genetic model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly. We use Drosophila because it contains or shares many pathways in common with humans, and because it's a great genetic system that allows us to study multiple genes and how they contribute to the pathways that we’re interested in. We can use fruit flies to answer fundamental questions that we don't really understand in human health. For example, young children infected with bacteria exhibit cognitive dysfunction later in life. My lab is collaborating with the lab across grounds to use fruit flies to study how infection in young animals disrupts brain development. And we can find genes that play a role in this process and may help us to understand this in humans as well.
Michelle Bland, PhD, Associate Professor, Pharmacology
Transcript:
My lab uses fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, which is a great genetic model organism, to study how hormones like insulin and how infection control growth and metabolism in young animals. And one of the things that I really love about doing this research, or any research, is that I get to work with really creative people to solve complex problems.
My name is Michelle Bland. I'm an associate professor in the department of pharmacology at the UVA School of Medicine. And my lab studies how hormones like insulin control growth and metabolism. And on the flip side, we study how infection can derail the control of growth and metabolism by insulin signaling. And we do all of this using the genetic model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly. We use Drosophila because it contains or shares many pathways in common with humans, and because it's a great genetic system that allows us to study multiple genes and how they contribute to the pathways that we’re interested in. We can use fruit flies to answer fundamental questions that we don't really understand in human health. For example, young children infected with bacteria exhibit cognitive dysfunction later in life. My lab is collaborating with the lab across grounds to use fruit flies to study how infection in young animals disrupts brain development. And we can find genes that play a role in this process and may help us to understand this in humans as well.
