Jalal Taleb, who will be a second year student at UM this fall, will be continuing work in MCDB Assistant Professor Monica Dus's lab with a Summer Biomedical and Life Sciences Fellowship from the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program.

He will be trying to understand the underlying brain circuitry involved in feeding behaviors in Drosophila (fruit flies). The Dus lab investigates how genes are involved in the selection of food for nutrients versus taste. "Our long-term goal includes investigating the neuronal circuitry that regulates feeding behaviors in obese and diabetic individuals. Overall, this integrative approach will offer an understanding of how brain activity is modulated by metabolic information," he explains.

Taleb has been doing research in the Dus Lab since Fall 2014. A student from Dearborn Heights, MI, he says he has had a long-standing interest in biology."I became most intrigued by the biological sciences when reading segments of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in middle school." He will be  pursuing an Honors B.S in Neuroscience, concentrating in biochemistry and molecular biology.