Affiliation: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Dr. Borniger is an assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Born in Washington, D.C., he received his B.A. in biological anthropology from Indiana University – Bloomington and then his PhD in neuroscience from The Ohio State University. He then completed a BRAIN Initiative postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University before starting his faculty position in early 2020. His group is focused on unraveling the complex interactions between the nervous system and cancer in the body. To accomplish this, his lab uses techniques from systems neuroscience, immunology, and molecular biology to interrogate neuronal-cancer interactions at multiple spatiotemporal scales. In his dissertation work, Dr. Borniger demonstrated that non-metastatic breast cancer could distally alter the activity of neurons in the hypothalamus controlling arousal and systemic energy balance. Blockade of this aberrant neuronal activity was sufficient to improve sleep and rescue systemic changes in metabolism. These findings provided a potential mechanism driving cancer-associated sleep disruption, which is a common complaint of patients with breast cancer. In his spare time, Dr. Borniger likes to play piano and scuba dive when he gets the chance.