Dr. Tontonoz is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his undergraduate degree in molecular biology and biochemistry from Wesleyan University and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard Medical School. He carried out his postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute and completed his residency training in pathology at the University of California, San Diego.

Dr. Tontonoz’s laboratory studies the regulation of gene expression by nuclear receptors and the relationship of these signaling pathways to human diseases. Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in industrialized societies. The common thread that links these disorders is dysregulation of lipid metabolism. The long-term goal long-term goal of Dr. Tontonoz’s research is to understand the mechanisms whereby lipids control gene expression and impact the development of metabolic disease. With the discovery of nuclear receptors that are activated by lipids, the past 10 years have seen a new paradigm emerge for the transcriptional regulation of metabolic pathways. Dissection of these pathways is advancing our understanding of basic mechanisms that control metabolism and highlighting new opportunities for therapeutic intervention.

Dr. Tontonoz is the recipient of the Richard. E. Weitzman Award from the Endocrine Society and a Bristol Myers-Squibb Freedom to Discover Award in Cardiovascular Disease. He serves on the editorial boards of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Molecular Endocrinology and the Journal of Lipid Research.