Ana Domingos

Ana I. Domingos, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford, where she leads her laboratory. Her research focuses on how sympathetic neural networks control adipose tissue and immune cells to regulate fat metabolism independently of food intake, pioneering the field of neuroimmunometabolism. The Domingos lab has made several seminal discoveries, including the identification of the sympathetic neuro-adipose junction, sympathetic neuron-associated macrophages (SAMs), and coined the concept of a sympathofacilitator drug class with potential therapeutic relevance. She also revealed that in sympathetic neurons, Neural peptide Y—a peptide best known for increasing appetite—protects against obesity by sustaining fat burning.

Trained in medicine and mathematics in Lisbon and Paris, Ana completed her Ph.D. in neurobiology with Leslie Vosshall at Rockefeller University, followed by postdoctoral research with Jeffrey M. Friedman on leptin-mediated regulation of neural circuits. She established her independent laboratory in 2013 at the Gulbenkian Institute for Science before joining Oxford in 2018. Ana is an EMBO Member, a founder of a biotechnology start-up, a Fellow in Medicine at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of leading scientific journals.