Thomas O'Halloran

Thomas V. O'Halloran is the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor in Chemistry and Professor of Molecular Biosciences in the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences and Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. He is the founding director of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute and Director of the Institute’s Quantitative Bio-element Imaging Center and Center for Developmental Therapeutics. O’Halloran is the principal investigator of the Chicago Region Physical Science-Oncology Center, a partnership between CLP and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.

O’Halloran's expertise is in bioinorganic chemistry. with a research focus on understanding how receptors for metals such as copper, iron and zinc regulate cellular functions across organisms that span the tree of life. Using genetic, chemical, structural and mechanistic approaches, he and his collaborators have discovered new types of metal-binding proteins, defined their structures, functions and mechanisms and tied their function to a number of disease-related physiological processes. Among many other breakthroughs, O'Halloran and collaborators discovered that zinc fluxes control fundamental developmental decisions in bacteria, diseases-causing parasites and fertilization of mammalian eggs. Over five hundred press pieces have been published about the zinc fluxes and sparks that accompany fertilization of mammalian eggs. 

O'Halloran co-founded several successful biomedical startups including Tactic Pharma that led to the spin-out of Monopar Therapeutics, the largest first day increase for IPO since 2005.

Among his many awards and honors, O'Halloran gave the Annual Dewitt Stetten Jr. Lecture at National Institutes of Health in 2016 and is a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Society of Chemistry.