Matthias Tschöp

Matthias H. Tschöp (born 7 April 1967) is a German physician and scientist.

He is the chief executive officer and scientific director of Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health.

He is also Alexander von Humboldt Professor and chair of metabolic diseases at Technical University of Munich and serves as an adjunct professor at Yale University.

Tschöp obtained an M.D. from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (1993), where he worked as a clinician (1994–1998) in neuroendocrinology before accepting a research fellowship at the Eli Lilly Discovery Research Laboratories (1999–2002) and leading a research team at the German Institute of Human Nutrition (Potsdam/Nuthetal 2002–2003).

He served as a Professor of Endocrinology and Diabetes at the Metabolic Diseases Institute of the University of Cincinnati (2003–2009), before being named the Arthur Russell Morgan Endowed Chair of Medicine, and Research Director of the Metabolism Center of Excellence for Diabetes and Obesity at the University of Cincinnati (2009–2011).

He was Research Director of the Helmholtz Diabetes Center and Director of the Institute for Diabetes and Obesity at Helmholtz Zentrum München (2011–2018).

Early in his career, Tschöp reported on the orexigenic, adipogenic, and metabolic effects of ghrelin and its secretory control by nutrients, which has had a major influence on human obesity and diabetes research.

His corresponding publication in Nature is among today's most frequently cited metabolism research papers.

It added a fundamental pathway to the current model of body weight and glucose control and established novel drug targets for metabolic diseases.

Tschöp went on to further dissect gut-brain communication pathways, based on GI-hormone signaling and lessons from unraveling the molecular underpinnings of gastric bypass surgery.

Together with his close collaborator Richard DiMarchi (Indiana University) he discovered and validated the novel drug class of dual and triple gut hormone co-agonists for the treatment of obesity and diabetes.

These new drugs simultaneously target several receptors and reduce body weight and blood sugar with unprecedented efficacy.

Several of these compounds are in clinical trials for the treatment of diabetes and obesity and one representative of this drug class, the GIP/GLP1 receptor dual agonist Tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Eli Lilly and Company) was FDA approved for diabetes in 2022.

Tschöp and DiMarchi more recently went on to discover and validate another class of drug candidates by engineering peptide to deliver steroid/small molecules to selected cell populations.

In 2022, Tschöp was a candidate to succeed Heinz Engl as rector of the University of Vienna; however, he ultimately withdrew his application.

As of January 2023, he is the vice president for health of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers.