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Vishwa Deep Dixit, D.V.M., Ph.D.

Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Comparative Medicine and Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine

Vishwa Deep Dixit is a professor of comparative medicine and immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine. He did Ph.D. research at University of Hannover, Germany, and postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Before joining Yale, he was a faculty member at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge.

Dixit’s research is focused on immunometabolism, with the goal to reveal molecular targets that can be harnessed to control inflammation and immune dysfunction as a means to enhance the healthspan. He has discovered that prolongevity hormone FGF21 protects against thymic degeneration in aging and T-cell senescence. His lab has helped define the role of innate immune sensor NLRP3 inflammasome in aging, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and immune senescence. His lab identified that ketone metabolite beta-hydroxybutyrate deactivates the NLRP3 inflammasome and thus serves as a therapeutic target to lower the NLRP3 inflammasome-dependent inflammatory diseases.

His work has been published in prominent journals, including Nature Immunology, Nature Medicine, Cell Metabolism, Cell Reports, PNAS and Journal of Clinical Investigation. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the Fellows Award for Research Excellence by NIH (thrice), Nathan Shock Young Investigator Awards from National Institute on Aging and Gerontological Society of America and the Young Investigator Award from the Endocrine Society. He received an honorary master of arts degree from Yale University in 2014. Dixit Laboratory is funded in part by NIH.

Related Research:

Role of Secreted Protein Acidic and Rich in Cysteine (SPARC) in Immunometabolic Control of Age-Related Inflammation Vishwa Deep Dixit 2021-01-29 Role of Microglial Matricellular Protein SPARC in Control of Inflammasome Activation Vishwa Deep Dixit 2018-12-24 Impact of Inflammasome Deactivation on Alzheimer’s Disease Vishwa Deep Dixit 2016-09-07

Funded Research

These projects were made possible from Cure Alzheimer's Fund support.

Project Description Researchers Funding
Role of Secreted Protein Acidic and Rich in Cysteine (SPARC) in Immunometabolic Control of Age-Related Inflammation 2020, 2022

$345,000
Role of Microglial Matricellular Protein SPARC in Control of Inflammasome Activation 2018, 2019

$345,000
Impact of Inflammasome Deactivation on Alzheimer’s Disease 2016, 2017

$225,000

Selected Publications

These published papers resulted from Cure Alzheimer’s Fund support.

Camell, C. D., Günther, P., Lee, A., Goldberg, E. L., Spadaro, O., Youm, Y. H., Bartke, A., Hubbard, G. B., Ikeno, Y., Ruddle, N. H., Schultze, J., & Dixit, V. D. Aging induces an NLRP3 inflammasome-dependent expansion of adipose B cells that impair metabolic homeostasis, Cell Metabolism, November 14, 2019, Read More

Goldberg, E. L., Shchukina, I., Youm, Y. H., Ryu, S., Tsusaka, T., Young, K. C., Camell, C. D., Dlugos, T., Artyomov, M. N., & Dixit, V. D. IL-33 causes thermogenic failure in aging by dysfunctional adipose ILC2, Cell Metabolism, September 1, 2021, Read More

Mihaylova, M. M., Chaix, A., Delibegovic, M., Ramsey, J. J., Bass, J., Melkani, G., Singh, R., Chen, Z., Ja, W. W., Shirasu-Hiza, M., Latimer, M. N., Mattison, J. A., Thalacker-Mercer, A. E., Dixit, V. D., Panda, S., & Lamming, D. W. When a calorie is not just a calorie: Diet quality and timing as mediators of metabolism and healthy aging, Cell Metabolism, June 30, 2023, Read More

Ravussin, A., Youm, Y. H., Sander, J., Ryu, S., Nguyen, K., Varela, L., Shulman, G. I., Sidorov, S., Horvath, T. L., Schultze, J. L., & Dixit, V. D. Loss of Nucleobindin-2 causes insulin resistance in obesity without impacting satiety or adiposity, Cell Reports, July 31, 2018, Read More

Ryu, S., Shchukina, I., Youm, Y. H., Qing, H., Hilliard, B., Dlugos, T., Zhang, X., Yasumoto, Y., Booth, C. J., Fernández-Hernando, C., Suárez, Y., Khanna, K., Horvath, T. L., Dietrich, M. O., Artyomov, M., Wang, A., & Dixit, V. D. Ketogenic diet restrains aging-induced exacerbation of coronavirus infection in mice, eLife, June 21, 2021, Read More

Lee, A. H., & Dixit, V. D. Dietary Regulation of Immunity, Immunity, September 15, 2020, Read More

Ryu, S., Sidorov, S., Ravussin, E., Artyomov, M., Iwasaki, A., Wang, A., & Dixit, V. D. The matricellular protein SPARC induces inflammatory interferon-response in macrophages during aging, Immunity, August 12, 2022, Read More

Ryu, S., Spadaro, O., Sidorov, S., Lee, A. H., Caprio, S., Morrison, C., Smith, S. R., Ravussin, E., Shchukina, I., Artyomov, M. N., Youm, Y. H., & Dixit, V. D. Reduction of SPARC protects mice against NLRP3 inflammasome activation and obesity, Journal of Clinical Investigation, October 2, 2023, Read More

Camell, C. D., Sander, J., Spadaro, O., Lee, A., Nguyen, K. Y., Wing, A., Goldberg, E. L., Youm, Y. H., Brown, C. W., Elsworth, J., Rodeheffer, M. S., Schultze, J. L., & Dixit, V. D. Inflammasome-driven catecholamine catabolism in macrophages blunts lipolysis during ageing, Nature, September 27, 2017, Read More

Shchukina, I., Bagaitkar, J., Shpynov, O., … Dixit, V. D., … Artyomov, M. N. Enhanced epigenetic profiling of classical human monocytes reveals a specific signature of healthy aging in the DNA methylome, Nature Aging, November 23, 2021, Read More

Spadaro, O., Youm, Y., Shchukina, I., Ryu, S., Sidorov, S., Ravussin, A., Nguyen, K., Aladyeva, E., Predeus, A. N., Smith, S. R., Ravussin, E., Galban, C., Artyomov, M. N., & Dixit, V. D. Caloric restriction in humans reveals immunometabolic regulators of health span, Science, February 10, 2022, Read More

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