Brain Vascular Biology and Brain Cancer Biology
Dr Thomas Wälchli, MD PhD, FMH, is a neurosurgeon-neuroscientist, combining clinical work as a neurosurgeon with basic and translational science as a neuroscientist and vascular and cancer biologist.
Our research
Researchers build first-ever molecular atlas of blood vessel pathways in the human brain
An international consortium of researchers have built the first-ever molecular atlas of the human brain vasculature at single-cell resolution.
Dr Thomas Wälchli, MD PhD, FMH, is a neurosurgeon-neuroscientist with a surgical focus on brain tumours and an overlapping basic/translational research focus on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate the brain vasculature in development, adulthood and disease, with a special emphasis on single-cell multi-omics characterization of brain vascular endothelial cells and subsequent functional validation.
Recently, together with his research group, he characterized the human brain vasculature across development, adulthood, and disease at single-cell resolution, thereby unravelling fundamental insights into the establishment, maintenance, and alteration of the human brain vasculature.
He uncovered extensive molecular heterogeneity of the vasculature of healthy foetal and adult human brains across vascular-dependent CNS pathologies including brain tumours and brain vascular malformations. He and his team also constructed a single-cell and spatial atlas of the human COVID-19 brain and lung vasculature revealing a CNS-specific mechanism for SARS-CoV-2 endothelial cell entry. They further described the onco-foetal axis in the human brain vasculature by identifying an inhibitory as well as a promoting cue that govern vascular growth and endothelial metabolism during brain development and in brain tumours.
These findings contribute to out understanding of neurodevelopmental programs that are activate in the angiogenic human foetal brain vasculature, silenced in the adult healthy brain vasculature, and reactivate in the angiogenic vasculature of glial brain tumours regulating angiogenesis and endothelial metabolism, and have potential implications in the therapeutic of glioma.
Thomas continues to be very fascinated, driven, and dedicated about his career path as a brain tumour neurosurgeon-neuroscientist, combining clinical work as a neurosurgeon with basic and translational science as a neuroscientist and vascular and cancer biologist.
Most recently, he works on the role of developmental programs that regulate vascular growth, the blood-brain-barrier, and endothelial-immune interactions in the human brain tumour vasculature.
Swiss researchers want to uncover the deepest secrets of the brain
An international research team with Swiss participation has created a cell atlas of the blood vessels in the human brain. This sheds new light on various brain diseases.
Selected publications
- Wälchli T, Ghobrial M, Schwab M, et al. Single-cell atlas of the human brain vasculature across development, adulthood and disease. Nature. 2024 Aug;632(8025): 603-613.
- Floriddia E. Molecular architecture of the human brain vasculature. Nat Neurosci. 2024 Sep;27(9): 1638.
- Crouch EE. The molecular landscape of vascular cells in the human brain. Nat Rev Cardiol. 2024 Dec;21(12): 847-848.
- Wälchli T, Bisschop J, Carmeliet P, et al. Shaping the brain vasculature in development and disease in the single-cell era. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2023 May;24(5): 271-298.
- Schwab M, Ghobrial M, Jimenez-Macia JL ... Wälchli T. Onco-fetal protein Nogo-A restricts human and mouse glioma vascularization and growth via VEGF-Notch-hippo-metabolic signaling. bioRxiv, 2024.
- Schwab M, de Trizio I, Ghobrial M ... Wälchli T. Nucleolin promotes angiogenesis and endothelial metabolism along the oncofetal axis in the human brain vasculature. JCI Insight. 2023 Apr 24;8(8): e143071.
