Peter Tontonoz is the Frances and Albert Piansky Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the David Geffen School of Medicine Dean’s Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles. The focus of his laboratory is the control of gene expression by lipids and the role of nuclear receptors in lipid metabolism. Dr. Tontonoz’s work has helped to reveal fundamental mechanisms by which animals maintain cellular and whole-body lipid homeostasis. His laboratory has elucidated pathways for the regulation of lipid uptake, transport and efflux, and has shown how these pathways impact the function of immune cells and metabolic tissues in both physiology and disease.

Dr. Tontonoz is a recipient of the Richard Weitzman Award and the Gerald D. Aurbach Award from the Endocrine Society, and the Jeffrey Hoeg Award for Basic Science and Clinical Research from the American Heart Association. He has been elected to American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians and is a past President of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Dr. Tontonoz serves on many editorial boards and he is the Editor in Chief of Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Dr. Tontonoz earned a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School.