Professor of Molecular Virology, Immunology, Medical Genetics, Neuroscience and Neurosurgery at the Ohio State University, USA Matthew During is Professor of Molecular Virology, Immunology, Medical Genetics, Neuroscience and Neurosurgery at the Ohio State University, as well as Professor of Molecular Medicine and Pathology at the University of Auckland, and Visiting Professor of Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. After graduating from Auckland, he completed his residency and fellowship in neuroendocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and undertook postdoctoral research at M.I.T., prior to joining the endocrine and neurosurgical faculty at Yale University. He briefly returned to New Zealand as Head of Department of Molecular Medicine at the University of Auckland and returned to the US, to TJU and then Cornell University before joining OSU. A pioneer of gene therapy, his interests are broad, but of most relevance to endocrinology is his most recent work on the effect of the environment on the hypothalamic-sympathoneural-adipocyte axis, and the potential of activation of this axis to treat obesity, cancer, and induce a white to brown fat phenotypic switch.