Christian Tschudi, newly named as the John Rodman Paul Professor of Epidemiology, is an expert on neglected tropical diseases.
Unraveling the biology of pathogens is fundamental toward understanding mechanisms of pathogenesis and identifying genes essential for survival in the host. Tschudi’s research focuses on the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei, which causes devastating diseases in humans and animals in sub-Saharan Africa. His laboratory has developed several methodologies for creating mutants and has been instrumental in establishing a number of techniques to study processes at the biochemical level. These approaches will lead to a better understanding of the infectious cycle of the parasite, which involves a mammalian as well as an insect host. The long-term goal is to identify candidate molecules that can be targets for chemotherapy or provide an opening to develop transmission blocking vaccines.
Tschudi is currently a permanent member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) study section on pathogenic eukaryotes and the organizer of the international conference on kinetoplastid molecular cell biology. He also directs a NIH-sponsored pre- and postdoctoral training program in parasitology and vector biology. The goal of the program is to provide trainees with both a strong intellectual foundation through coursework and rigorous experimental training in areas that take molecular, cellular, immunological, epidemiological, and ecological approaches to the study of pathogens and their vectors.
Tschudi earned an A.B. in microbiology and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Basel in Switzerland. After completing postdoctoral training in the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale, Tschudi served as a research scientist, first at the Yale MacArthur Center for Molecular Parasitology, and then in the Section of Infectious Diseases at the School of Medicine. He joined the Yale faculty in 1997 as assistant professor (infectious diseases). He subsequently held several faculty positions until being named a full professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases) in 2011. Since 2008, he also serves as director of graduate studies at the School of Public Health.
The Yale professor has contributed scores of articles to peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, Science, Cell, PLoS Pathogens, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other publications. He has also written numerous reviews and book chapters for edited volumes and journals. Tschudi is associate editor of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases and serves on the editorial boards of Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology and The FASEB Journal.
Tschudi’s honors include the Burroughs Wellcome Fund New Investigator Award in Molecular Parasitology, the Research Project Award in Parasitology and Tropical Medicine from the MacArthur Foundation, and being elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.