Rate My Professor Hans Dalton

Hans M. Dalton serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas, where he joined in August 2024. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry with Honors from the University of Michigan in 2012, conducting research on a G-protein coupled receptor disorder in mice under Dr. Rick Neubig. Dalton earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California in 2018, studying aging biology in Caenorhabditis elegans in Dr. Sean Curran's laboratory. Subsequently, he completed a five-year postdoctoral position in Human Genetics at the University of Utah from 2019 to 2024 in Dr. Clement Chow's lab, investigating rare diseases known as Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDGs) using Drosophila and human cell models.

Dalton's research program centers on essential gene biology, encompassing their implications for rare human diseases such as CDGs and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase deficiencies, biological mechanisms, aging biology, and genomics. The Dalton Lab develops Drosophila models exhibiting robust phenotypes for developmental diseases, performs medium-throughput in vivo drug repurposing screens using libraries of FDA-approved drugs, and validates promising therapeutics through genetic manipulations, dose-response analyses, and assays in cell cultures including proliferation, siRNA, and metabolomics. His independent research is funded by the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Notable publications include "A drug repurposing screen reveals dopamine signaling as a critical pathway underlying potential therapeutics for the rare disease DPAGT1-CDG" (PLoS Genet., 2024), "A genome-wide CRISPR screen identifies DPM1 as a modifier of DPAGT1 deficiency and ER stress" (PLoS Genet., 2022), "Decoupling of Apoptosis from Activation of the ER Stress Response by the Drosophila Metallopeptidase superdeath" (Genetics, 2020), "Hypodermal responses to protein synthesis inhibition induce systemic developmental arrest and AMPK-dependent survival in Caenorhabditis elegans" (PLoS Genet., 2018), and "Redirection of SKN-1 abates the negative metabolic outcomes of a perceived pathogen infection" (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 2019). Dalton was recruited via KU's Research Rising initiative and has presented at the Annual Drosophila Research Conference in 2025 and 2026.