Research
Genetic, molecular, and neural underpinnings of sleep and sleep deprivation
Appointments
- Associate Professor; Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology
Biography
Dr. Paul studies the genetic, molecular, and neural underpinnings of sleep. His primary interests are comprised of uncovering the mechanisms responsible for the negative effects of sleep deprivation in adults and children. He also probes the origins of gender/sex differences in the ability to recover from sleep loss to develop therapeutic targets for sleep disorders that disproportionately affect females.
His work has shown that sex differences in daily sleep amount are dependent on circulating reproductive hormones while sex differences in the ability to recover from sleep loss are relatively insensitive to them. Dr. Paul’s current research involves applying a forward genetics approach to uncover the core genes responsible for sleep-wake regulation and the impairing effects of sleep loss. Effective treatments for common sleep-wake disorders are elusive.
Dr. Paul conducts a forward genetics approach to facilitate gene identification that takes advantage of natural variation occurring in sleep-replete and sleep-deprived mice. This approach applies the most cutting edge genome mapping, positional cloning, and DNA sequencing techniques to identifying the genetic origins of unique sleep phenotypes in transgenic mouse models. These studies are expected to identify novel sleep regulatory genes and lead to the development of new therapeutic targets and improved treatments for sleep disorders.
Publications
- Zhao, Y, Andoh, T, Charles, F, Reddy, P, Paul, K, Goar, H et al.. VISTA-induced tumor suppression by a four amino acid intracellular motif. bioRxiv. 2025; :. doi: 10.1101/2025.01.05.631401. PubMed PMID:39803490 PubMed Central PMC11722267.
- Gupta, S, Luxami, V, Paul, K. Unlocking the Antibacterial Potential of Naphthalimide-Coumarins to Overcome Drug Resistance with Antibiofilm and Membrane Disruption Ability against Escherichia coli. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2025; :. doi: 10.1021/acsami.4c13337. PubMed PMID:39772461 .
- Maurya, A, Yadav, A, Soni, M, Paul, KK, Banjare, U, Jha, MK et al.. Nanoencapsulated Essential Oils for Post-Harvest Preservation of Stored Cereals: A Review. Foods. 2024;13 (24):. doi: 10.3390/foods13244013. PubMed PMID:39766956 PubMed Central PMC11727106.
- Brechbuhl, HM, Han, A, Paul, KV, Nemkov, T, Ramachandran, S, Ward, A et al.. Metabolic Switch in Endocrine Resistant Estrogen Receptor Positive Breast Cancer. bioRxiv. 2024; :. doi: 10.1101/2024.12.28.630631. PubMed PMID:39763830 PubMed Central PMC11703175.
- Finlay-Schultz, J, Paul, KV, Erickson, B, Fettig, LM, Hastings, BS, Johnson, DL et al.. Maf1 Cooperates with Progesterone Receptor to Repress RNA Polymerase III Transcription of Select tRNAs. bioRxiv. 2024; :. doi: 10.1101/2024.12.16.628719. PubMed PMID:39763804 PubMed Central PMC11702520.