Dr. Thomas Pulinilkunnil is an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Dalhousie University and an adjunct professor at the University of New Brunswick’s Saint John (UNBSJ) campus. He is also an affiliate scientist at the Saint John Regional Hospital and was formerly the research director at Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick.

After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in pharmaceutical science and his master’s degree in neuropharmacology in India, Dr. Pulinilkunnil moved to Canada and achieved a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of British Columbia. He then completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at Harvard Medical School and the other in energy metabolism at the University of Alberta.

Dr. Pulinilkunnil’s research mainly examines the mechanisms of energy metabolism in diseases such as diabetes, obesity and breast cancer. He has also studied nutrient regulation of lysosome metabolism, signaling and autophagy in health and disease, and amino acid biology.