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Jeremy C. Borniger

Jeremy C. Borniger

Assistant Professor
Cancer Center Member

Ph.D., Ohio State University, 2017

bornige@cshl.edu | 516-367-5015

Borniger Lab Website   Faculty Profile

Patients with cancer frequently experience debilitating symptoms that can impair quality of life and reduce odds of survival. These include drastic changes in appetite, sleep/wake cycles, cognitive function, and pain, among others. Our lab aims to uncover mechanistic interactions between the brain and cancer that drive these phenomena. Reciprocally, we investigate how manipulation of specific brain circuits influences cancer processes in the body.

Why do patients with cancer (irrespective of cancer type) frequently experience systemic symptoms like pain, cognitive impairment, deficits in appetite, and disrupted sleep/wake cycles? What is the underlying biology governing these phenomena, and how can this biology be leveraged to improve peoples’ lives? To answer questions such as these, the Borniger lab investigates bi-directional communication between the brain and periphery in the context of cancer. The lab aims to determine how tumors disrupt neural circuit function, how aberrant cellular activity promotes cancer-associated systemic dysfunction, and how reciprocal outputs from the brain regulate cancer growth and metastasis. Specifically, the Borniger lab use techniques from systems neuroscience (e.g., optogenetics, calcium imaging, circuit mapping, electrophysiology, and behavioral assays) to dissect how factors in the tumor microenvironment alter host physiology and behavior. Recent work has focused on how central neuromodulator populations participate in cancer-associated sleep and metabolic disruption. The lab discovered that non-metastatic mammary tumors distally alter immune and endocrine signaling to aberrantly activate lateral hypothalamic hypocretin/orexin (HO) neurons. This resulted in disrupted sleep and hepatic glucose metabolism, the latter being driven by the sympathetic nervous system (Borniger et al., 2018 Cell Metabolism). This research, in combination with clinical work, will facilitate the development of novel treatments to improve outcomes for patients with cancer.

2019
NARSAD Young Investigator Award – Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF)
Travel Award – American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP)

2018
W.C. Young Recent Graduate Award – Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology (SBN)

June 2018 – Cancer linked to sleep and metabolic disruption (Nature Reviews Endocrinology)
June 2018 – Tumours trigger systemic disruption (Nature Reviews Cancer)
Jan 2017 – Timing of chemo affects inflammation, mice study suggests

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All Publications

Integrating priorities at the intersection of cancer and neuroscience

15 Oct 2024 | Cancer Cell | :S1535-6108(24)00362
Hwang, William;  Perrault, Ella;  Birbrair, Alexander;  Mattson, Brandi;  Gutmann, David;  Mabbott, Donald;  Cukierman, Edna;  Repasky, Elizabeth;  Sloan, Erica;  Zong, Hui;  Demir, Ihsan;  Saloman, Jami;  Borniger, Jeremy;  Hu, Jian;  Dietrich, Jorg;  Breunig, Joshua;  Çifcibaşı, Kaan;  Ahmad Kasm, Khalil;  Valiente, Manuel;  Wintermark, Max;  Acharya, Munjal;  Scheff, Nicole;  D'Silva, Nisha;  Vermeer, Paola;  Wong, Richard;  Talbot, Sebastien;  Hervey-Jumper, Shawn;  Wang, Timothy;  Ye, Yi;  Pan, Yuan;  Bunimovich, Yuri;  Amit, Moran;  

Cancer neuroscience at the brain-body interface

3 Oct 2024 | Genes & Development
Borniger, Jeremy;  

A brain-body feedback loop driving HPA-axis dysfunction in breast cancer

14 Sep 2024 | bioRxiv
Gomez, Adrian;  Wu, Yue;  Zhang, Chao;  Boyd, Leah;  Wee, Tse-Luen;  Gewolb, Joseph;  Amor, Corina;  Cheadle, Lucas;  Borniger, Jeremy;  

Next Directions in the Neuroscience of Cancers Arising outside the CNS

4 Apr 2024 | Cancer Discovery | 14(4):669-673
Amit, Moran;  Anastasaki, Corina;  Dantzer, Robert;  Demir, Ihsan;  Deneen, Benjamin;  Dixon, Karen;  Egeblad, Mikala;  Gibson, Erin;  Hervey-Jumper, Shawn;  Hondermarck, Hubert;  Magnon, Claire;  Monje, Michelle;  Na'ara, Shorook;  Pan, Yuan;  Repasky, Elizabeth;  Scheff, Nicole;  Sloan, Erica;  Talbot, Sebastien;  Tracey, Kevin;  Trotman, Lloyd;  Valiente, Manuel;  Van Aelst, Linda;  Venkataramani, Varun;  Venkatesh, Humsa;  Vermeer, Paola;  Winkler, Frank;  Wong, Richard;  Gutmann, David;  Borniger, Jeremy;  

The cytokine receptor Fn14 is a molecular brake on neuronal activity that mediates circadian function in vivo

2 Apr 2024 | bioRxiv
Ferro, Austin;  Arshad, Anosha;  Boyd, Leah;  Stanley, Tess;  Berisha, Adrian;  Vrudhula, Uma;  Gomez, Adrian;  Borniger, Jeremy;  Cheadle, Lucas;  

Neuropeptides in Cancer: Friend and Foe?

1 Jul 2022 | Advanced Biology | :e2200111
Wu, Yue;  Berisha, Adrian;  Borniger, Jeremy;  

Sleep Disruption and Cancer: Chicken or the Egg?

19 May 2022 | Frontiers in Neuroscience | 16:856235
Berisha, Adrian;  Shutkind, Kyle;  Borniger, Jeremy;  

Cancer as a homeostatic challenge: the role of the hypothalamus

Sep 2021 | Trends in Neurosciences
Francis, Nikita;  Borniger, Jeremy;  

Cancer as a tool for preclinical psychoneuroimmunology

17 Sep 2021 | Brain, Behavior, and Immunity - Health | :100351
Borniger, Jeremy;  

Machine learning approaches reveal subtle differences in breathing and sleep fragmentation in Phox2b-derived astrocytes ablated mice

1 Apr 2021 | Journal of Neurophysiology | 125(4):1164-1179
Silva, Talita;  Borniger, Jeremy;  Alves, Michele;  Alzate Correa, Diego;  Zhao, Jing;  Fadda, Paolo;  Toland, Amanda;  Takakura, Ana;  Moreira, Thiago;  Czeisler, Catherine;  Otero, José;  

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