Skin Fat Regulation: Edriss Yousuf

The fat layer in our skin has the ability to expand and shrink. Yet, the regulatory mechanisms for skin fat growth and shrinking are not well understood. In this Share Your Research Talk, Edriss Yousuf describes his thesis research on the regulation of skin fat. He discovered a non-immune function of regulatory T cells and showed that they can induce autophagy in skin fat cells to decrease their lipid droplet size. These findings have implications for scarring and scleroderma, disorders which are typically associated with reduced skin fat abundance.