About the PI
Dr. Yuuki Obata earned his Ph.D. in Immunology from Chiba University in Japan through the RIKEN Joint Graduate School Program, where he studied how the gut microbiota influences intestinal immune responses in the laboratory of Dr. Hiroshi Ohno. In 2015, he was awarded a Superlative Postdoctoral Fellowship (SPD) under the Research Fellowship for Young Scientists program from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), and conducted research on mucosal immunity at the Institute of Medical Science, the University of Tokyo (IMSUT). In 2016, he moved to the United Kingdom to investigate the development and physiology of the enteric nervous system (ENS) as a postdoctoral fellow at the Francis Crick Institute in London, supported by EMBO and HFSP long-term fellowships. Dr. Obata joined the faculty of the Department of Immunology and Neuroscience in 2021 and also serves as an Investigator at the O'Donnell Brain Institute (OBI).
His honors include the Ikushi Prize from JSPS (2015), the Pew Biomedical Scholars Award (2023), and the Young Scientists’ Prize from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan (2024).
Research
The gut is a highly innervated organ that harbors the largest population of immune cells in the body. Research in the Obata Lab focuses on how environmental signals in the gut interact with the nervous and immune systems to regulate intestinal physiology and behavior. Over the past decade, our work has uncovered fundamental insights into the complex interplay between the gut microbiota, intestinal epithelium, immune cells, and enteric neurons in maintaining gut homeostasis and contributing to disease pathogenesis.
We are particularly interested in how environmental cues—such as microbiota, diet, and day/night (circadian) cycles—shape intestinal neural circuits and immune cell networks. To address these questions, we employ a wide range of experimental approaches, including:
- Advanced imaging technologies
- Viral tracing of gut innervation
- In vivo and ex vivo physiological assays
- Behavioral assays
- Gnotobiotic mouse models
- High-throughput multi-omics analyses
We are also exploring the molecular mechanisms underlying inter-organ communication, including the gut-brain axis. The Obata Lab welcomes undergraduate students, graduate students, and senior scientists who are passionate about neuroimmune biology, host-microbe interactions, and systems physiology. If you are interested in joining the lab or learning more about our research, please feel free to contact Dr. Yuuki Obata.