Justin L. Grobe, PhD, an Assistant Professor in the Carver College of Medicine Department of Pharmacology was recently awarded a pilot grant from the Fraternal Order of Eagles’ Diabetes Research Center for a project titled “Non-Aerobic Resting Metabolism: An Untapped Obesity Target?”  The project leverages unique instrumentation that the Grobe laboratory has spent several years constructing and validating, which allows simultaneous measurement of both aerobic and non-aerobic metabolisms in mice.  Notably, such measurements are only possible in a handful of laboratories worldwide and onboard the International Space Station, as this equipment was partially fabricated by the same engineering firm as employed by NASA.  Using this “total calorimeter” and methods to transfer the gut microbiome between animals, the lab has discovered that the gut microbiome is a major contributor to normal energy expenditure by mice (accounting for 16% of the total), and that this contribution is specifically made in the form of non-aerobic metabolic processes.  In collaboration with the laboratory of John R. Kirby, PhD (Iowa Microbiology), the Grobe lab is now working to understand the physiological control of non-aerobic metabolism and the utility of modulating non-aerobic metabolism by manipulating the gut microbiome, as stimulating these processes and systems represents a completely untapped, novel direction for obesity therapeutics.