Cold and cellular resilience

What protective stress responses reveal about metabolism and repair.

Cold is a protective environmental stress rather than merely an injury. We study how mild hypothermia and RBM3 reorganise cellular metabolism, RNA regulation and mitochondrial function, and whether those mechanisms can improve resilience without requiring cold exposure.

Graphical abstract summarising the cellular effects of mild hypothermia and RBM3 on RNA, lipid metabolism, mitochondria and muscle differentiation

Summary of our published work on mild hypothermia and RBM3. See the publications below.

Current directions

Cold adaptation and RBM3

Mild hypothermia activates a coordinated cellular response rather than simply slowing metabolism. We study how this response reshapes mitochondrial function, RNA regulation…

Cold-response biology in skin

We study whether protective cold-response programmes, including RBM3-associated pathways, can be engaged without sustained cooling. In skin models, we examine how these…

Publications from this area

Molecular mediators of cold adaptation in mammalian cells

Dey P, Lal H, Saha P, Ramanathan A. Communications Biology 2025;8(1):1441.

Cold-shock proteome of myoblasts reveals role of RBM3 in promotion of mitochondrial metabolism and myoblast differentiation

Dey P, Rajalaxmi S, Saha P, Thakur PS, Hashmi MA, Lal H, Saini N, et al. Communications Biology 2024;7(1):515.

Proteome plasticity in response to persistent environmental change

Domnauer M, Zheng F, Li L, Zhang Y, Chang CE, Unruh JR, et al. Molecular Cell 2021;81(16):3294–3309.e12.