Joseph Lab

Summary¶

The Joseph Lab is led by Dr. Paule V. Joseph at the Section of Sensory Science and Metabolism (SenSMet), an intramural research program jointly supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. The laboratory investigates how sensory processing of taste, smell, and chemesthesis is linked to metabolic conditions, dietary habits, and brain-gut signaling.

Research Focus¶

The laboratory's research focuses on: - Sensory Processing and Metabolism: Elucidating how variations in chemosensory perception contribute to metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, and alcohol use disorders. - Nutritional Epidemiology: Leveraging genomic datasets to dissect how taste and olfactory receptor pathways shape food liking and ingestion, minimizing confounding in observational nutrition research. - Causal Modeling: Using genetic instruments derived from taste and olfactory receptor variants to establish causal links between dietary components (such as onion consumption) and cardiometabolic traits like blood pressure (see Chemosensory Mendelian Randomization).

Citations¶

Section of Sensory Science and Metabolism (SenSMet) at NIH: https://www.nih.gov (as of 2026-07-19)
Key Publication: Hwang, L. D., Lin, C., Evans, D. M., Martin, N. G., Reed, R. D., & Joseph, P. V. (2026). A biologically informed framework for instrument selection in dietary Mendelian randomization using chemosensory genetics. BMC Medicine, 24:359. Source paper: s12916-026-04966-x.pdf