Dr. Horvath graduated from the University of Veterinary Sciences, Budapest, Hungary, in 1992, where he received a degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. He received a PhD in neurobiology from University of Szeged in 2000. Dr. Horvath was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University School of Medicine between 1992 and 1994. Since 2005, he has been the Jean and David W. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Research endowed Chair of the Section of Comparative Medicine, which is a free standing academic department of Yale Medical School focusing on animal models of human diseases. In 2009 he founded the Yale Program in Integrative Cell Signaling and Neurobiology of Metabolism. Since 1986, the major goal of his research is to determine the signaling flow and regulatory relationship within and between neuronal circuits that underlie the maintenance of physiological and pathological homeostatic conditions with particular emphasis on metabolic disorders, such as obesity, and neurodegeneration. As recognition of his research accomplishments, he has received various honors, including The Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Prize, Honorary Diplomat, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, Szent Istvan University, Budapest, Hungary, Ideas of 2006 by the New York Times Magazine, the NIH Director's Pioneer Award (2010) and the Ernts Oppenheimer Award from The Endocrine Society (2012).
Selected Awards
2013, Honorary Doctorate, Szent Istvan University, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
2012, The Ernst Oppenheimer Award, The Endocrine Society
2010, Jean and David W. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Research, Yale University, School of Medicine
2010, The NIH Director’s Pioneer Award
2009, Finalist; Blavatnik Award; The New York Academy of Sciences
2008, Alexander von Humboldt Professorship (by the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Germany)
2008, BBVA Chair in Biomedicine, The Cajal Institute, Madrid, Spain
2005, Key Lecture at the Annual Meeting of The Obesity Society (previously known as NAASO), Vancouver, Canada (October)
2002, The Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Fellowship (by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Hungary)
2002, Key Note Speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Endocrine Society, Amherst, MA (October).
Research Interests
Tamas Horvath’s laboratory has been studying the relationship between peripheral hormones and circuits of the central nervous system that, in turn, regulate complex, goal-oriented behaviors and whole body energy metabolism. They have been analyzing the regulatory principles of hypothalamic circuits and their effects on complex behaviors. From these studies, they assert that hypothalamic circuit activity during development and adulthood has critical relevance in the etiology of symptomatology associated with anorexia nervosa.
Diano, Sabrina; Liu, Zhong-Wu; Jeong, Jin Kwon; Dietrich, Marcelo O; Ruan, Hai-Bin; Kim, Esther; Suyama, Shigetomo; Kelly, Kaitlin; Gyengesi, Erika; Arbiser, Jack L; Belsham, Denise D; Sarruf, David A; Schwartz, Michael W; Bennett, Anton M; Shanabrough, Marya; Mobbs, Charles V; Yang, Xiaoyong; Gao, Xiao-Bing; Horvath, Tamas L: Peroxisome proliferation–associated control of reactive oxygen species sets melanocortin tone and feeding in diet-induced obesity. Nature Medicine 17 (9), 2011, 1121-1127.
Andrews, Z. B.; Erion, D.; Beiler, R.; Liu, Z.-W.; Abizaid, A.; Zigman, J.; Elsworth, J. D.; Savitt, J. M.; DiMarchi, R.; Tschop, M.; Roth, R. H.; Gao, X.-B.; Horvath, T. L.: Ghrelin Promotes and Protects Nigrostriatal Dopamine Function via a UCP2-Dependent Mitochondrial Mechanism. Journal of Neuroscience 29 (45), 2009, 14057-14065.
