For undergraduate students interested in research or pursuing a Ph.D after graduation, Laila Ouldibbat’s groundbreaking work on the influence of ovarian hormones on metabolism offers intriguing insights. Ouldibbat is a fifth-year Ph.D student at Fordham University, receiving the Clare Boothe Luce Fellowship, and her research focuses on the influence of fluctuating ovarian hormones on metabolism using mice models.
Ouldibbat focuses on the study of the hypothalamus section of the brain which regulates metabolism and is estrogen-sensitive. She found that estrogen-depleted mice show an increase in body weight and food consumption, expressing metabolic dysfunction. Ouldibbat is writing her first authored paper, which is currently in review and which she will present at the Society for Neuroscience conference later this year. Her fellowship is funding her research for the next two years.
Ouldibbat graduated from Drexel University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science in nutrition and biochemistry. After graduating, Ouldibbat became a registered dietitian specializing in neonatology and pediatrics, working with preterm infants. She then decided to pursue a Ph.D in biology and cell molecular biology with a focus on neuroscience at Fordham.
In Dr. Maria Kundukovich’s lab, Ouldibbat’s research focuses on studying the implication of fluctuating ovarian hormones on behavior and molecular mechanisms.
“The lab is very hormone focused. We use mice models,” said Ouldibbat. “We study fluctuating ovarian hormones similar to the menstrual cycle. In healthy adult females, it’s a four-week process. But in mice, it’s only four to five days. Mice give us an awesome shorter tracking period to be able to target these time points that we want. We are tracking to see the behavior, and then if the molecular mechanisms [at that time are] at high estrogenic phase or low estrogenic phase.”
She works with three groups of mice, high estrogen, low estrogen and ovariectomized (mice with their ovaries removed) to learn the effects of estrogen depletion on the metabolism.
Ouldibbat emphasized the importance of studying ovarian hormones to understand psychiatric risk and metabolic syndromes.
“When I was a first-year grad student our lab started weighing our animals. I was like, ‘Well, actually, I have this metabolism background, and I’d actually be really interested in studying metabolism in the brain.’ The lab used to study regions of the [mice] brain like ventral hippocampus and the nucleus accumbens [which] are regions that [deal with] mood regulation,” said Ouldibbat. “When I joined we started studying the hypothalamus, which is the region of the brain in both mice and humans that regulates our metabolism. We stress the function and fluctuate [the] ovarian hormones. And so these brain regions are also estrogen sensitive, meaning that there are estrogen receptors in these brain regions. We study the implications of these different ovarian hormone states on animal behavior phenotype, and then, of course, the molecular mechanisms once we look at the brain.”
To undergrad students, Ouldibbat stresses learning about research programs now. “It’s never too soon to try to join a lab and get some research experience, especially at Fordham. There’s a summer undergraduate research grant, and it would be really good for people to consider. The grant gives you some money to do your research,” she said. “There’s all these grants, and you know, not only do they look great on your resume, but they’re also really good opportunities.”
Ouldibbat has presented her research at two conferences by the Society for Neuroscience and the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology and plans to present her work again at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago.
