Tommy Nilsson

Biographical Sketch

Dr. Tommy Nilsson is a professor and Senior Researcher at McGill University and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), respectively.  His primary research interest is in the Cell Biology and Pathophysiology of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, how this metabolic condition which includes steatohepatitis, fibrosis and cirrhosis, serve as primers for hepatocellular carcinoma. Nilsson joined McGill University and the RI-MUHC in 2009 leaving his Professor position at the Sahlgrenska Academy at Gothenburg University, Sweden. Between, 1995 and 2003, Nilsson worked as a group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. His postdoctoral studies were at Cancer Research UK, London UK and doctoral studies at the Scripps Clinic & Research Foundation, La Jolla, CA and Uppsala University, Sweden.

Keywords

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, organellar proteomics, lipid droplet

Research or Clinical Activities

My research interests are in three main areas: 1) Human NAFLD; In depth proteomics, transcriptomics and advanced bioinformatics analysis of human liver samples have enabled us to highlight a number of novel proteins associated with hepatic lipid droplets with links to type 2 diabetes, cancer as well as lipophagy. 2) Mapping of protein-protein interactions using biotin in vivo proximity labeling (BioID) 3) Investigating the role of ARFGAP1, an ARF-activating/ COPI uncoating protein, on hepatic lipid droplets.

Selected Recent Publications

Gannon J, Fernandez-Rodriguez J, Alamri H, Feng SB, Kalantari F, Negi S, Wong AH, Mazur A, Asp L, Fazel A, Salman A, Lazaris A, Metrakos P, Bergeron JJ, Nilsson T. ARFGAP1 Is Dynamically Associated with Lipid Droplets in Hepatocytes. PLoS One. 2014 Nov 14;9(11):e111309.

Leclerc D, Dejgaard K, Mazur A, Deng L, Wu Q, Nilsson T, Rozen R. Quantitative proteomics reveals differentially expressed proteins in murine preneoplastic intestine in a model of intestinal tumorigenesis induced by low dietary folate and MTHFR deficiency. Proteomics. 2014 Nov;14(21-22):2558-65.

Kiss RS, Nilsson T. Rab proteins implicated in lipid storage and mobilization. J Biomed Res. 2014 May;28(3):169-77.

Nilsson T, Mann M, Aebersold R, Yates JR 3rd, Bairoch A, Bergeron JJ. Mass spectrometry in high-throughput proteomics: ready for the big time. Nat Methods. 2010 Sep;7(9):681-5.

Bell AW, Deutsch EW, Au CE, Kearney RE, Beavis R, Sechi S, Nilsson T, Bergeron JJ; HUPO Test Sample Working Group. A HUPO test sample study reveals common problems in mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Nat Methods. 2009 Jun;6(6):423-30.

PubMed Publications (partial) – T. Nilsson