Oct 24, 2025
Dr. Christopher Depner has been awarded a five-year, $3.8 million R01 grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for his project, “Mechanistic Contribution of Internal Circadian Misalignment to the Cardiometabolic Risk of Sleep Loss.”
Research team: PI: Dr. Christopher Depner; Co-Investigators: Dr. Tanya Halliday, Dr. Matthew Wahl, Dr. James Cox, and Dr. Hongwei Zhao
The project aims to examine the mechanistic contribution of circadian misalignment—when the timing of sleep and food intake are out of sync from the body’s internal circadian clock—to the adverse cardiometabolic risks associated with insufficient sleep.
Insufficient sleep is a growing public health problem that affects more than one-third of U.S. adults and is known to be a major risk factor for diabetes and heart disease. Depner’s team will use a highly controlled, in-laboratory randomized crossover study to determine how internal circadian misalignment impairs insulin sensitivity and risk for obesity, both of which are major factors contributing to diabetes and heart disease. The team will also analyze thousands of molecules in the blood which will help point them to molecular level changes that occur with sleep loss. To accomplish this study, each participant will live in the College of Health Sleep and Circadian Research Lab for 24 hours per day for a total of 23 days. The study team provides participants all their food and can have control over the timing and duration of their sleep along with how much light exposure participants receive.
By identifying the specific contributions of the timing of light exposure and food intake to these adverse effects that occur in people with short sleep, the study aims to uncover new mechanistic pathways and inform the development of circadian-based behavioral interventions. The findings could lead to practical strategies for improving metabolic health among individuals who experience chronic sleep loss, including shift workers, first responders, medical personnel, and military service members.