Professor Thomas Südhof

Thomas Christian Südhof is a German-American neuroscientist whose work has focused on how neurons communicate with each other at synapses. Südhof’s initial work with Drs. Mike Brown and Joe Goldstein at UT Southwestern in Dallas, TX, examined cholesterol metabolism, a key driver of heart disease. In 1986, Südhof switched his research focus to neuroscience to study synapses in his own laboratory.  Here, Südhof’s research studied how a presynaptic neuron rapidly secretes neurotransmitters, which initiates synaptic transmission. This work revealed a general mechanism of regulated secretion which was honored by the Nobel Prize in 2013 shared with Jim Rothman and Randy Scheckman. More recently, Südhof’s studies at Stanford University focused on how synapses in brain are formed, resulting in the identification of trans-neuronal signaling networks that control synaptic connections. Moreover, Südhof’s work addresses how these synaptic connections become impaired in schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease as an avenue to possible new therapies.