Rate My Professor Thomas Grewal

Associate Professor Thomas Grewal serves in the School of Pharmacy within the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney, a position he has held since joining the institution in October 2007. He earned his PhD in gene regulation from the University of Freiburg in Germany in 1993. His postdoctoral training focused on lipoprotein receptors, conducted at the Heart Research Institute in Sydney and the Clinical Research Institute in Montreal, Canada. From 1997 to 2003, Grewal led a research group at the University Hospital Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany. He then headed another research group at the Centre for Immunology at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney from 2003 to 2007.

Grewal's research investigates the interplay between membrane transport and cell signalling, regulating spatiotemporal signalling dynamics in health and disease. Utilizing biochemistry, molecular cell biology, and advanced microscopy techniques, he specializes in scaffolding proteins like annexins and cellular cholesterol transport mechanisms that govern signalling complex localization and receptor activity. Notable publications include 'Annexins—a family of proteins with distinctive tastes for cell membrane lipids' (Nature Communications, 2024), 'Revisiting the role of Annexins in membrane trafficking' (Traffic, 2025), 'Cholesterol and COVID-19—therapeutic opportunities at the host–virus interface' (Life Science Alliance, 2024), and 'Lack of Annexin A6 Exacerbates Liver Dysfunction and Reduces Life Expectancy in ANXA6-Knockout Mice' (American Journal of Pathology, 2021). With over 150 research works accumulating more than 5,575 citations, his contributions have advanced knowledge on liver repair processes and cholesterol dysregulation in disorders such as Niemann-Pick disease. Funding includes University of Sydney grants RY253, U3367, and U7113. In 2025, he received the PERIscope Commercialisation Award for a project on small molecules enhancing Rab7-GTPase activity. Grewal supervises three PhD students as principal supervisor and two as associate supervisor, alongside two visiting MD students, and has guest-edited a special issue on lipoproteins for the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.