Rate My Professor Alexander Tups

Associate Professor Alexander Tups serves in the Department of Physiology within the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Otago. He studied Biology at the Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf and the Philipps University of Marburg, completing a Diploma in Biology focusing on Animal Physiology, Genetics, and Developmental Biology. Tups earned his PhD summa cum laude in 2005 from the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen and the Philipps University of Marburg, where his thesis examined neuroendocrine mechanisms regulating seasonal body weight. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Otago with Greg Anderson and Dave Grattan from 2006 to 2008, he secured one of seven junior group leader grants in nutrition research from the German Ministry of Education and Research (€1,500,000) in 2007. This enabled him to establish an independent research group in neuronal nutrition physiology at the Philipps University of Marburg, investigating brain nutrient sensing's role in body weight and glucose homeostasis regulation. He held the position of Deputy Professor for Animal Physiology there from 2012 to 2014 before returning to the University of Otago as Senior Lecturer in Physiology in 2014, later promoted to Associate Professor.

Tups' research centers on neuroendocrine regulation of metabolism, particularly interactions between adiposity signals leptin and insulin in the hypothalamus to sustain energy homeostasis, identification of novel glucose metabolism pathways, and neuroendocrinology of nutrition-related diseases like the link between type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. His lab explores gene therapy and nutritional interventions for obesity and metabolic disorders. Funding supports his work from Return on Science (Otago Innovation), Maurice Wilkins Centre, Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund, and German Research Foundation. Key publications include "A dahlia flower extract has antidiabetic properties by improving brain insulin action" (Pretz et al., Life Metabolism, 2023), "Obesity pharmacotherapy: incretin action in the central nervous system" (Boer et al., Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, 2022), "Leptin regulates glucose homeostasis via the canonical Wnt pathway in zebrafish" (Kamstra et al., FASEB Journal, 2022), and "A New Zealand green-lipped mussel oil-enriched high-fat diet improves body weight and glucose homeostasis in mice" (Loehfelm et al., British Journal of Nutrition, 2021). Tups has published over 40 research papers and received the Michael Harbuz Prize for neuroendocrine research (2009, UK) and Ernst and Berta Sharrer Award (2014, Germany). His contributions include developing Dahlia4, a patented natural glucose support product from neuroscience and metabolism research.