image: Yong Xu, MD, PhD, and two international colleagues have won a multi-million dollar research grant.
Credit: USF Health
Tampa, Fla (Nov. 6, 2025) — An international research team that includes USF Health researcher Dr. Yong Xu and two colleagues from Great Britain has been awarded a European Research Council Synergy Grant to study the biology of instinctive behavior, the organization announced Thursday.
Xu, Dr. Sadaf Farooqi of University of Cambridge and Dr. Tiago Branco of University College London found that pathways in a key part of the brain called the hypothalamus control a range of instinctive behaviors. In children, genetic mutations which disrupt these pathways can cause overeating, obesity and in some cases, autistic traits, aggression and even severe anxiety.
Dr. Xu joined USF Health this summer as director of the newly launched Center for Molecular Psychiatry and as a professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. His research, which also is funded by grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, centers on the interplay between nutrition and metabolism and a wide range of neurobiological disorders, with an intense focus on obesity and diabetes.
The award of 10 million Euros, equivalent to nearly $11.5 million, will be divided among Dr. Xu and his two fellow principal investigators. The researchers will use the funds to study people with genetic changes that affect hypothalamic pathways, by utilizing super high-resolution brain scans to visualize how the brain works in response to stress or when a person is hungry or full.
They will then explore how the same genetic changes affect metabolism and behavior among animals in a natural social setting. Aided by the state-of-the-art technology, the researchers hope to unravel the precise way in which the wiring of the brain controls instinctive behavior across species.
“This funding from the ERC will allow us to be bold and innovative as we investigate instinctive behaviors at unprecedented breadth and depth, linking studies in animals and humans,” Dr. Xu said.
Altogether, 66 research teams, bringing together 239 scientists, will receive a total of €684 million in European Research Council Synergy Grants to tackle some of the most challenging scientific questions across a broad range of fields. Fewer than one in 10 proposals received funding.
“Collaboration is at the heart of the ERC Synergy Grants,” ERC president Maria Leptin said. “In our latest round, teams of researchers will join forces to address the most complex scientific problems together — this time, they are more international than ever. The competition was fierce, with many outstanding proposals left unfunded.”
Dr. Charles J. Lockwood, executive vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, congratulated the trio Thursday on the grant award.
"I am thrilled to see Dr. Xu come to USF Health and continue to elevate his fascinating research in nutrition and metabolism with such immediate success," Dr. Lockwood said. "I hope this will be one of many more international collaborations that USF Health researchers will conduct as we think boldly and creatively about moving research forward."
Dr. Xu expressed gratitude for the support of USF Health leadership, particularly from Dr. Lockwood and Dr. Stephen Liggett, senior associate vice president for research at USF Health and vice dean of research in the Morsani College of Medicine.
“I want to thank Dr. Lockwood and Dr. Liggett and the leadership at USF Health,” Dr. Xu said. “I’ve only been at USF Health for a few months but to already resume our usual productivity in that time is amazing. The leadership has provided incredible support and funds to help us continue our work.”
Dr. Xu has teamed up for the past decade with Dr. Farooqi and Dr. Branco, and the new award is the culmination of that close collaboration.
“Dr. Farooqi is a very well-known world expert of human genetics for obesity,” Dr. Xu explained. “She collected clinical and genomic data from a large cohort of children with severe and early-onset obesity and discovered the genetic mutations that cause obesity.”
“I am delighted to have the opportunity to work with my colleagues Yong Xu and Tiago Branco on such a fundamental research question which has significant potential to impact conditions which harm human health such as obesity and anxiety, ” Dr. Farooqi said.
Dr. Branco from the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, UCL, brings expertise and knowledge in neurobehaviors and neural circuits.
“By coming together, our three groups can take on a challenge that no one group could address on their own,” Dr. Branco said. “Our studies have the potential to transform societal understanding of the biological contribution to human behavior — often expressed as the age-old debate between nature and nurture."
The core of their exploration focused on the biology of mammalian innate behavior -- for instance, escape from threats, feeding, mating, social interaction and aggression are defined as innate or instinctive behaviors that do not need to be learned and are fundamental for survival, growth and reproduction. In contrast, human beings tend to believe that how much they eat, their ability to socialize, the flight/fight response and aggressive behavior are completely under personal control. Together, the three scientists, known as the INSTINCT consortium, will embark on an ambitious research program to deliver a step-change in the understanding of instinctive behavior in animals and humans.
The team traveled to Brussels recently for the final round of interviews, including a presentation of their work that resulted in the judges awarding them funding.
“We didn’t expect that,” Dr. Xu said. “Though we felt good about our performance, we thought we might have to come back and try again. But we were thrilled to be selected for funding. This support will help us deepen our understanding of the mechanism for innate behavior at a very detailed level. And our study will shed light on a wide range of human diseases tied to these disordered behaviors. We’re very excited about what lies ahead.”