Sarah Elzinga Joins PSL Faculty
Article Highlights
- Sarah Elzinga's academic journey began with a passion for equine health, evolving from her early career as a horse trainer to a focus on metabolic dysfunction and immune responses in horses.
- Her research expanded to human health, studying how obesity and metabolic dysfunction impact the brain’s immune cells, with the goal of developing treatments for dementia.
- She hopes to foster collaborations to enhance the department while addressing the growing global challenges of aging, obesity, and metabolic disorders.
Sarah Elzinga’s career in science didn’t begin in a lab, but rather in a barn.
Growing up in Grand Rapids as the eldest of one brother and one sister, she wanted to be a horse trainer and actually worked as one for several years.
“While I loved working as a trainer, I wanted to do something that would more directly impact the health and well-being of the animals,” said the newest assistant professor in the Department of Physiology.
That motivation set her on an academic journey first to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College where she received a bachelor’s degree in equine science. This led her to Michigan State University, where she pursued a master’s degree in the Department of Animal Science, focusing her thesis project on nutrition in aged horses. From there, Elzinga pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky, where her research delved into the intersection of metabolic dysfunction and immune responses in horses. Her work focused on equine metabolic syndrome—a condition similar to human metabolic syndrome—and how it altered immune function as well as solutions to correcting those changes.
But her research didn’t stop at horses. Elzinga’s academic journey would then lead her to the University of Michigan where her work expanded to encompass human health.
“I continued to look into the immune system and inflammation, but this time using models of obesity and prediabetes/diabetes to understand how immune system changes and inflammation might cause nervous system damage,” she said. “Specifically, my research is focused on the brain and the brain’s immune cells, the microglia and how they might impact cognition or dementia.”
It's an important area of research because the global population is changing, Elzinga says.
“Not only is the population aging, but the number of people who are obese or have some form of metabolic dysfunction like prediabetes/diabetes is also growing,” she said. “Because both aging and obesity/metabolic dysfunction have common risk factors or even possibly common causes, understanding these may actually lead to breakthroughs and to therapies for dementias, which currently have limited treatment options.”
As she transitions into her new role, Elzinga is hoping her broad range of expertise in immunology/inflammation, nutrition, aging, obesity/metabolic dysfunction, and the nervous system will enhance the Department of Physiology and foster collaborative relationships with colleagues.
“I’m hoping to build new collaborations that move me towards the ultimate goal, which is to help identify and test treatments for dementia in people with obesity/metabolic dysfunction,” she said.
For now, Elzinga is focused on establishing her lab back in familiar territory.
“I am excited to start my own laboratory at MSU,” she said. “It does feel a little like ‘coming home’, although home certainly looks different from when I was a master’s student!”
