Esteban Javier Beckwith, Ph.D.
- Title
- Principal Investigator
- Department
- Integrative neurobiology
- Institution
- Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires (IBioBA), CONICET-Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society
- Address
- Godoy Cruz 2390, Buenos Aires
- City, State, ZIP
- C1425FQD
- Country
- Argentina
- [email protected]
- Research field
- Neuroscience
Research
Our group aims to understand how neural circuits generate behavior and enable animals to adapt to a changing environment. We work at the interface of neurophysiology, sleep research, and circadian biology, focusing on how internal states—such as arousal, social context, and immune activation—reshape sleep and behavioral organization. Building on foundational work by the group leader on molecular and circuit-level regulation of circadian clocks and sleep, our research highlights the plasticity and complexity of brain regulatory networks across evolution.
Using Drosophila melanogaster as a genetically tractable model, we integrate behavioral analysis with molecular, cellular, and circuit-level approaches. Our work has contributed to redefining classical views of sleep regulation by showing that sleep is dynamically modulated by sexual arousal, social experience, and sensory context, and by revealing that chronic sleep restriction is not intrinsically lethal. More recently, we have expanded our focus to the interaction between sleep, immunity, and metabolism, including pathological contexts such as infection, cancer, and dysbiosis.
Partnership Award
With the Partnership Award, Esteban Beckwith, Ph.D., and Marcelo Yanovsky, Ph.D., will team up to study how organisms regulate gene expression in response to environmental stress. Their work focuses on intron detention, a type of post-transcriptional gene regulation that causes RNA to be retained in the nucleus. This creates a pool of “paused” RNA that could be rapidly processed and exported when an appropriate signal is received. This project combines genome-wide transcriptomics, genetic perturbations, and physiological analyses in two classic model systems—the plant Arabidopsis thaliana and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster—to determine whether intron detention is conserved across plants and animals and how it is mechanistically controlled. Yanovsky’s expertise in plant molecular and computational biology complements Beckwith’s experience in neurobiology, behavior, and physiological adaptation. The research will elucidate the role of intron detention in modulating stress responses and provide fundamental insight into stress adaptation and organismal resilience across biological systems.
