David Tobin

David Tobin is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and Immunology at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, USA. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco, USA. After spending two years living in Guatemala, where he became interested in tuberculosis, he trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington. His work has been recognized with a number of awards, including a Searle Scholar Award, an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Mallinckrodt Foundation Award, and a Vallee Scholar Award. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Dr. Tobin’s laboratory focuses on the host immune response to mycobacterial infections, largely using a zebrafish model, but with extension to mammalian models and human clinical samples and cohorts. Using genetic screens and intravital microscopy, his lab has identified conserved immune signaling pathways engaged during tuberculosis and modulated by pathogenic mycobacteria. His work has helped define key macrophage phenotypic transitions during formation of the tuberculous granuloma, the hallmark structure of tuberculosis, as well as identifying eicosanoid-related pathways that influence the severity of mycobacterial infection from zebrafish to humans.