Professor
Yale School of Medicine
Department of Neurology

100 College Street
New Haven, Connecticut 06510

Phone: (203) 737-3416
Email: thomas.biederer@yale.edu
Connect: LinkedIn / ResearchGate / Google Scholar / Publons / PubMed

Thomas Biederer received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. Thomas then earned a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for his studies of membrane protein quality control in the secretory pathway with Dr. Thomas Sommer at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin. Combining his deep-seated interests in neuroscience and membrane biology, Thomas pursued postdoctoral training at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas under the mentorship of Dr. Thomas Südhof. At UT Southwestern, Thomas investigated mechanisms of synapse formation and the roles of synaptic adhesion molecules, and he characterized the first synaptogenic proteins of the immunoglobulin superfamily in the vertebrate brain. He became faculty member at Yale University in 2003, and joined in 2013 the Tufts University Medical School. In 2019, Thomas was recruited to the Yale School of Medicine where he is faculty member in the Department of Neurology.

Thomas is intrigued by synapse biology. His long-term goal is to understand synapse development, from molecular to in vivo levels. His entry point to study these questions are the adhesion molecules spanning the synaptic cleft, protein complexes that his group has helped to identify and characterize. On a molecular and cell biological level, research in his group has revealed that interactions by SynCAM immunoglobulin proteins across the cleft can successively function during axo-dendritic contact and synapse formation, and later shape synapses. His group has in addition demonstrated that SynCAMs have signaling roles. Pursuing long-standing interests in molecular approaches, his laboratory also has performed the first localization of adhesive cleft complexes on a nanoscale. His lab members extend this program to investigate synapse-organizing mechanisms in vivo. In fact, most members of his lab combine molecular and in vivo approaches in their research, which offers the opportunity to approach related questions from very different angles. This progress has led to the recognition that trans-synaptic SynCAM complexes are both necessary and sufficient to drive synapse development in the brain. His laboratory has additionally demonstrated that proteins spanning the synaptic cleft can modulate synaptic plasticity. Among the most recent progress of his group are the results that SynCAM molecules organize the formation of excitatory synapses onto interneurons and control network maturation in the cortex. Our next aims are to define the mechanisms that instruct synapse formation using innovative approaches such as superresolution imaging of sub-synaptic protein distribution, single particle tracking of synapse-organizing molecules to measure their surface dynamics in live neurons, and proteomic studies of synapse composition. A group of truly outstanding collaborators works with his group to reach these goals together. His laboratory also applies these research capabilities to identify nutritional interventions that promote circuit wiring and synapse stability. Attaining these goals is of importance to human health as altered synapse formation, maturation, and maintenance underlie neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, and synaptic aberrations are linked to drugs of abuse.