Sabrina Diano PhD

Dr. Sabrina Diano is the Robert R. Williams Professor of Nutrition, Director of the Institute of Human Nutrition, and Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She is also an adjunct Professor at Yale University, Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology. She earned a Doctor of Biology and a PhD degree at the University of Naples “Federico II” in Naples, Italy. Dr. Diano moved to Yale University from Italy in 1994 to pursue her interest in metabolic regulation. She received her PhD in Physiology in 1999 from the University of Naples “Federico II” in Italy for the studies conducted at Yale University, combining her expertise in neuroendocrinology and mitochondria biology to study brain regulation of energy and glucose metabolism.

She became faculty at Yale University in 2000, where she moved up the ranks. In September 2020, she moved to Columbia University Irving Medical Center to direct the Institute of Human Nutrition. Dr. Diano’s research focuses on brain mechanisms regulating energy and glucose homeostasis using interdisciplinary approaches, including molecular biology, anatomy, biochemistry, behavior, electrophysiology, and chemogenetics, in rodent models. Her studies on nutrient sensing by the brain aim to identify inter- and intra-cellular mechanisms that enable brain cells to regulate energy and glucose metabolism and how derangements of these mechanisms induce the development of metabolic disorders. Her research adds critical information to the current understanding of the central regulation of energy and glucose homeostasis and how alterations in stored energy are sensed in the brain.