Katherine R Meckel

Katherine Meckel is a PhD candidate in the Department of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  In the lab of Dr. Drew Kiraly, she examines the interplay of the gut-brain axis in addiction-like behavior, specifically how depletion of gut bacteria and their metabolites affects cocaine-seeking behaviors in a rodent model of cocaine use disorder. Her work is supported by an NIH Blueprint D-SPAN F99/K00 Fellowship. 

Katherine graduated summa cum laude from Lawrence University with both a Bachelor's of Music in Voice Performance and a Bachelor's of Arts in Biochemistry, Psychology and Neuroscience.  During her time at Lawrence she worked with Dr. Bruce Hetzler, characterizing the effects of the psychostimulant methylphenidate on open field behavior and visual evoked potentials.  After graduation, she joined the Pekow lab in the Section of Gastroenterology at the University of Chicago, where she researched the effects of diet, metabolism, and the gut microbiome on disease pathogenesis in colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.  These studies sparked an interest in understanding how peripheral factors such as dietary metabolites modulate behavior, brain function, gene expression, and epigenetic regulation.