Allan-Hermann Pool, Ph.D.

Download Curriculum Vitae

Allan-Hermann Pool, a native of Estonia, obtained his PhD in Neuroscience at University of California, Berkeley, where he studied hunger circuits in the fruit fly with Dr. Kristin Scott and discovered a central circuit node preventing indiscriminate feeding in insects. He went on to perform postdoctoral work with Dr. Yuki Oka at California Institute of Technology where he developed technologies for mapping and re-engineering biological drive circuits in mammals and uncovered the cellular logic underlying distinct thirst modalities that drive water and mineral appetites.

Dr. Pool joined the Department of Neuroscience, Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute and the Department of Anesthesia and Pain Management at UT Southwestern as Eugene McDermott Endowed Scholar in Biomedical Sciences in the fall of 2021. Pool lab continues to study neural circuits that provide a sense of purpose and direction to animal behavior and develops targeted gene therapies to re-engineer their function. Current work in the Pool lab aims to flesh out central circuits that mediate pain and pain relief states as well as develop viral and non-viral approaches to make these circuit nodes therapeutically addressable.

Pool lab website: https://www.thepoollab.org

• cell-type-specific gene therapies
• central circuits for pain and pain relief
• neural circuits for biological motivations
• single-cell genomics

Featured Publications

The cellular basis of distinct thirst modalities.

Pool AH, Wang T, Stafford DA, Chance RK, Lee S, Ngai J, Oka Y, Nature 2020 12 588 7836 112-117

Serotonergic fast lane from taste detection to preparatory digestive actions.

Wang T, Pool AH, Oka Y, Neuron 2022 Mar 110 6 907-909

Sensory representation and detection mechanisms of gut osmolality change.

Ichiki T, Wang T, Kennedy A, Pool AH, Ebisu H, Anderson DJ, Oka Y, Nature 2022 Jan

US visa changes leave postdocs like us in limbo.

Ahmed MA, Behbahani AH, Brückner A, Charpentier CJ, Morais LH, Mallory S, Pool AH, Nature 2020 07 583 7815 202

The precarious position of postdocs during COVID-19.

Ahmed MA, Behbahani AH, Brückner A, Charpentier CJ, Morais LH, Mallory S, Pool AH, Science 2020 05 368 6494 957-958

Multimodal Analysis of Cell Types in a Hypothalamic Node Controlling Social Behavior.

Kim DW, Yao Z, Graybuck LT, Kim TK, Nguyen TN, Smith KA, Fong O, Yi L, Koulena N, Pierson N, Shah S, Lo L, Pool AH, Oka Y, Pachter L, Cai L, Tasic B, Zeng H, Anderson DJ, Cell 2019 10 179 3 713-728.e17

Feeding regulation in Drosophila.

Pool AH, Scott K, Curr Opin Neurobiol 2014 Dec 29 57-63

Four GABAergic interneurons impose feeding restraint in Drosophila.

Pool AH, Kvello P, Mann K, Cheung SK, Gordon MD, Wang L, Scott K, Neuron 2014 Jul 83 1 164-77

Neuropeptide Y gene therapy decreases chronic spontaneous seizures in a rat model of temporal lobe epilepsy.

Noè F, Pool AH, Nissinen J, Gobbi M, Bland R, Rizzi M, Balducci C, Ferraguti F, Sperk G, During MJ, Pitkänen A, Vezzani A, Brain 2008 Jun 131 Pt 6 1506-15

• Eugene McDermott Endowed Scholar in Biomedical Research
  (2021)
• Boehringer-Ingelheim Fonds
  (2010)
• Fulbright Science and Technology Award
  (2007)

• International Association for the Study of Pain (2021)
• Society for Neuroscience (2007)