The Weinstock Lab at the Gordon Research Conference 🦞
06/14/26–06/19/26

Members of the Weinstock Lab traveled to Maine for the 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Immunometabolism in Health and Disease. The conference was an exciting opportunity to share and discuss our work spanning weight cycling and fertility, immune progenitor reprogramming, and weight loss–driven changes in human adipose tissue, while learning about new discoveries from researchers across the field. 

We’re grateful for the chance to exchange ideas, make new connections, and bring fresh perspectives back to the lab—and since we were in Maine, we also made sure to find some time for lobster!

Three Amazing Graduates 🎓✨
June 2026

This spring, we celebrated three incredible members of the Weinstock Lab as they graduated from the University of Chicago!  Hunter and Layne completed their undergraduate degrees and are looking ahead to medical school, while Daniella earned her M.S. in Biomedical Sciences and will continue at UChicago as a Ph.D. student in Molecular Metabolism and Nutrition. We’re so proud of everything they’ve accomplished and grateful for the curiosity, dedication, and energy they’ve brought to the lab. Congratulations, Hunter, Layne, and Daniella—we can’t wait to see what comes next! 🥳🧪📚🔬

We Got Funded! — Leducq Network Grant
06/01/26

We’re incredibly excited to share that the Weinstock Lab has received funding as part of the new ADAMANT (Adipose tissue–Driven Atherosclerosis Mechanisms Across cliNical interventions and Translational models) Leducq Network! This international collaboration will bring together researchers across institutions to better understand how weight cycling and different approaches to weight loss reshape adipose tissue, inflammation, and atherosclerosis.

We are deeply grateful to Fondation Leducq for their generous support and for making ambitious, collaborative science like this possible. We’re thrilled for the opportunity to learn from and work alongside an incredible group of investigators, and we can’t wait to see where the science takes us. Lots of exciting work ahead!

Community Health Outreach with Med-ucate by SPARK
05/04/26 & 05/26/26

This spring, members of the Weinstock Lab partnered with Med-ucate by SPARK to visit local schools and teach students about nutrition, health, and pathways into science. We had the opportunity to work with Ms. Donahue’s 7th-grade class at William H. Ray Elementary School and Ms. Vantrease’s 5th-grade class at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic School. We’re grateful to the students and teachers for welcoming us into their classrooms and giving us the chance to share our enthusiasm for science and health. We love the work we do at the bench, but we’re just as excited to take that knowledge beyond the lab and serve our community!

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2026
04/17/26

Hunter, Layne, and Emilio represented the Weinstock Lab at the 2026 UChicago Undergraduate Research Symposium, presenting the projects they’ve spent the past year developing. It was exciting to see their hard work come together and to watch them share their findings with the broader research community. We’re proud of all three and grateful for the curiosity and energy they bring to the lab!

1st R01 funded 🥳🥳🥳
9/30/25

We are elated the NIH/NIDDK funded us at this critical moment!

Goodbye and Hello
8/30/25
Bitter sweet day as we say goodbye to the very 1st Weinstock lab member- Destini and say hello to our very 1st Master's student Daniella. Good luck to you both!

MEducate with Ms. Vantrease's Class at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church & School
05/19/2025

The Weinstock Lab partnered with MEducate, a local organization affiliated with the University of Chicago, to teach Ms. Vantrease’s 5th-grade class about the importance of nutrition and healthy eating. Through a combination of engaging discussions and hands-on activities, we highlighted the role of science in everyday life and shared insights into the research we conduct in our lab. We’re excited to continue giving back to the community and look forward to more volunteer opportunities in the future. Inspiring and educating young minds is something we truly value! 

Quad Fellow Trio!
05/07/2025

This summer, we are thrilled to welcome back some of our exceptional undergraduate researchers—Layne Kohler, Hunter Bershtein, and Emilio Del Angel—who have been awarded the Quad Fellowship to continue their important work over the next few months. Additionally, Ryan Chan will be staying on through the Jeff Metcalf Fellowship, furthering his research contributions. 

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2025
04/27/2025

We’re proud to share that two of our undergraduate researchers, Hunter and Layne, had the opportunity to present their year-long research projects. Their presentations showcased the dedication, curiosity, and hard work they’ve brought to the lab, and they did an outstanding job representing our team. We’re excited to see where their scientific journeys take them next!

Irvine H. Page Junior Faculty Award Finalist 2025
04/25/25

We’re thrilled to celebrate Ada and three other outstanding women investigators in cardiovascular research who presented their innovative work at the AHA Vascular Discovery 2025 Conference. These talented scientists were selected as finalists for a prestigious award that honors emerging leaders in the field for their groundbreaking contributions and exceptional leadership. A special congratulations to Dr. Callie Kwartler for receiving this well-deserved recognition for her phenomenal research—we're excited to see how her work continues to shape the future of cardiovascular science!

Chicago Diabetes Research and Training Center Grant
04/01/2025

A huge shoutout to our incredible lab team for their dedication, precision, and tireless work in generating the data that strengthened our recent grant application! Thanks to their efforts, we’re thrilled to move forward with our next phase of research, investigating how weight loss and subsequent weight regain influence obesity from an immunological perspective. The funding awarded through this grant will help us delve deeper into the complex relationship between metabolism and the immune system—bringing us one step closer to unlocking new insights into obesity and immune regulation.

Standing up for Science!
03/07/2025

Some of the Weinstock lab attended the downtown Chicago protest, Standing Up for Science. Although cold and rainy they still showed up to fight for science! 

Ringing in the New Year
01/05/2025

We welcomed 2025 by celebrating all that we accomplished in 2024! To show our appreciation, we put together goodie bags of cookies for everyone on our floor—a small gesture to thank our colleagues for a great year of collaboration and support. Here’s to an exciting and productive 2025 ahead: full of successful grants, impactful publications, and plenty of strong data. Cheers to the year ahead for the lab!

AIC 2024 - Presentations and Awards!
11/30/2024

We were thrilled to attend and present our research at AIC 2024, where many lab members had the opportunity to share recent findings with the broader immunology community. A special congratulations to Lourdes, who was honored with the prestigious AIC Young Investigator Award—a well-deserved recognition of her outstanding contributions to the field!

Lab Fun!
11/14/2024

Bowling time = bonding time! 

Annual Lab BBQ 2024
7/22/24

Lab comes together this summer to celebrate 2 years of being a lab! 

GRS and GRC 2024
7/01/2024

Welcoming Summer Students 2024
5/14/2024

As the spring quarter comes to an end, we are eager to begin our second year with summer students! Layne Kohler and Ryan Chan will return to the lab for the summer alongside our newest addition, Hunter Bershtein. These students will work hard alongside our amazing post-docs to gain firsthand experience of what it means to be a researcher in immunology. 

AAI 2024
5/09/2024

Harold Geneen
3/18/24

Ada is always hard at work using her skills to gather funding for us. We were recently awarded a fellowship by the Harold S. Geneen Charitable Trust for our plans to elucidate the role of caloric restriction-induced macrophages in promoting resolution of atherosclerosis. Here is to more submissions and hopefully more funding! 

Growing, growing, growing! 
3/01/24

Let's give a warm welcome to our newest post-doc Lourdes! Lourdes is joining us from Argentina and we can't wait to see the work she contributes to our lab in the next few years! 

In addition to a new post-doc, we have had the pleasure of working with many undergraduate students from UC: Riley Hamilton, Ryan Chan, Amber Williams and Layne Kohler are all students who we are mentoring and supporting throughout the current academic year. We can't wait to see how their summer projects unfold! 

Awards Galore!
2/25/2024

Our lab has been busy with fellowship applications, but also awards! Rotem Kalev-Altman, Wenceslao Martinez-Navarrete, and Lourdes Caceres all recently celebrated for their various fellowships or awards. 

Rotem- Awarded ADA fellowship for her work to understand the effects of weight loss and regain on tissue-resident hematopoietic stem/ progenitor cells and their contribution to local inflammation. 

Wenceslao- Awarded NIH-NHLBI fellowship for his work which strives to learn about the mechanisms underlying caloric restriction-mediated resolution of atherosclerosis. He was also the recipient of a travel award for AAI 2024 and the Fredrickson Lipid Conference 2023. 

Lourdes- Awarded a travel award for the AAI 2024. 

The Weinstock lab is officially open and is happy to share our logo, crated by the uber-talented Keren Mantzur Rivlin

 

New publication alert! March 15, 2021
Our paper describing resolving macrophage polarization by IL4 and Wnt signaling is out in ELife!

New publication alert! November 2020
Our collaboration with the Heffron lab was published at JTH

K99/R00 funded- July 2020
The NHLBI has funded our K99/R00 grant proposal!