Thomas Flatt
SNF Professor

We are interested in the evolution and mechanisms of life history traits, with a particular focus on aging, using the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) as a model system. For more details on our research see here.

Thomas Flatt is a Swiss National Foundation (SNF) Professor at the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, since December 2012. Prior to his position in Lausanne, he was a permanent group leader at the Institute of Population Genetics at the Vetmeduni Vienna and a faculty member of the Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics.

Thomas was born in Solothurn, Switzerland, in 1972. He studied biology at the University of Basel and received his M.Sc. in population biology in 1999 for work on phenotypic plasticity in lizards, supervised by Prof. Stephen C. Stearns (Basel, now Yale) and Prof. Richard Shine (Sydney). In 2004 he earned his Ph.D. on the hormonal regulation of Drosophila life history from the University of Fribourg (under Prof. Tadeusz Kawecki , now Lausanne). After his Ph.D. he was a postdoctoral research fellow in Prof. Marc Tatar's laboratory at Brown University (Providence, USA), sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Roche Research Foundation.

Thomas’s group studies the evolution and mechanisms of aging, life history evolution, and evolutionary physiology, using Drosophila as a model system. A major focus is on the hormonal regulation of life history trade-offs (especially trade-offs between reproduction and lifespan) and the endocrine modulation of aging, mainly by insulin, juvenile hormone, and ecdysone signaling in insects. Another major focus is on understanding the genetic basis of evolutionary changes in lifespan and other life history traits in natural and laboratory populations.

In 2011 Thomas co-edited a book on the genetic and physiological mechanisms of life history evolution (Oxford University Press 2011, with A. Heyland; link to book page); currently, he serves as a deciding editor for the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, as an associate editor for Frontiers in Genetics of Aging, as an academic editor for PLoS ONE, as a reviewing editor for Frontiers in Experimental Endocrinology, and is a contributing member of the Faculty of 1000 (Developmental Biology Faculty, Aging Section). In 2012 he was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Institute for Advanced Study.

Hansen, M.,* Flatt, T.*, and H. Aguilaniu*. 2013. Reproduction, Fat Metabolism, and Life Span: What Is the Connection? Cell Metabolism 17:10-19. [*Equal contribution].

Fabian, D.K., Kapun, M., Nolte, V., Kofler, R., Schmidt, P.S., Schlötterer, C. and T. Flatt. 2012. Genome-wide patterns of latitudinal differentiation among populations of Drosophila melanogaster from North America. Molecular Ecology 21:4748–4769.

Flatt, T., and A. Heyland (Editors). 2011. Mechanisms of Life History Evolution. The Genetics and Physiology of Life History Traits and Trade-Offs. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. 478 pages, 75 illustrations, ISBN 978-0-19-956877-2. (for more information on the book see here)

Flatt, T. 2011. Survival costs of reproduction in Drosophila. Experimental Gerontology 46:369-375.

Flatt, T. 2009. Ageing: Diet and longevity in the balance. Nature 462:989-990.

Flatt, T., and P.S. Schmidt. 2009. Integrating evolutionary and molecular genetics of aging. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1790:951-962.

Flatt, T., Heyland, A., Rus, F., Porpiglia, E., Sherlock, C., Yamamoto, R., Garbuzov, A., Palli, S.R., Tatar, M., and N. Silverman. 2008. Hormonal regulation of the humoral innate immune response in Drosophila melanogaster. Journal of Experimental Biology 211: 2712-2724.

Flatt, T., Min, K.-J., D’Alterio, C., Villa-Cuesta, E., Cumbers, J., Lehmann, R., Jones, D.L., and M. Tatar. 2008. Drosophila germ-line modulation of insulin signaling and lifespan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105:6368-6373

Flatt, T., and D.E.L. Promislow. 2007. Physiology: still pondering an age-old question. Science 318:1255-1256.

Flatt, T., and T.J. Kawecki. 2007. Juvenile hormone as a regulator of the trade-off between reproduction and life span in Drosophila melanogaster. Evolution 61:1980-1991.