Affiliation: University of California

Seunghwan Son, PhD, is an assistant project scientist at the University of California, San Diego Department of Medicine, where he studies immune-metabolic interactions in adipose tissue. His research focuses on how immune cells and adipocytes communicate during physiological metabolic adaptation and how these responses become dysregulated in obesity and metabolic disease. His recent work identified a neutrophil-mediated feedback mechanism that regulates adipocyte lipid mobilization during sympathetic activation. His broader research interests include adipose tissue inflammation, innate immunity, metabolic stress responses, insulin signaling, and the mechanisms that determine whether inflammatory responses remain adaptive or progress toward chronic dysfunction. He has extensive experience with cellular and mouse models of adipose tissue biology, immunometabolism, and metabolic inflammation.