Quick Facts
Biography
Tobias C. Walther is a Professor of Genetics and Complex Diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a Professor of Cell Biology at the Harvard Medical School. He is also an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. His primary responsibilities are to provide leadership in research and teaching in the scientific fields of metabolism, membrane biology and lipids. Before his appointment at Harvard, Dr. Walther was an Associate Professor of Cell Biology in the Yale School of Medicine.
Dr. Walther’s laboratory research seeks to understand the mechanisms that regulate lipid metabolism, lipid storage, and lipid function in membranes or as signaling molecules. Dr. Walther’s research is focused on the mechanisms by which cells regulate their lipid content and the impact of intracellular lipids on cellular functioning.
At Yale, Dr. Walther positioned his laboratory at the forefront of the rapidly growing field of lipid droplet biology. His group has extensively studied proteins required to adjust lipid droplet size and composition according to the cellular state. Additionally, his research has focused on organelle biogenesis and membrane biology. At Yale, Dr. Walther also oversaw the High Throughput Cell Biology Center at Yale's West Campus.
At Harvard, Dr. Walther is working in a scientific partnership with Dr. Robert V. Farese, Jr., on the biochemistry, cell biology, and genetics of lipid metabolism and homeostasis Farese-Walther Lab. In their research, Farese and Walther have been using a variety of state-of-the systems biology approaches, such as mass-spectrometry based proteomics or high content screening.
Education
Dr. Walther received his PhD in biology from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich in 2002. Dr. Walther then joined the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, to complete his post-doctoral studies. After completion of his postdoctoral training, Dr. Walther became Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany. In 2010, Dr. Walther relocated his lab from Germany to the United States and was appointed as an Associate Professor of Cell Biology at the Yale School of Medicine.