Thomas Brand studied biology at the University of Bielefeld from 1981 to 1987. He wrote his doctoral thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental and Clinical Research in Bad Nauheim from 1988 to 1991. From 1991 to 1994 he worked as a postdoctoral researcher under Professor Michael D. Schneider at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, USA, before joining the Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Braunschweig as a group leader. In 2004 he was appointed Professor of Molecular Developmental Biology at the University of Würzburg. Since 2009 he is Professor of Developmental Dynamics at the Faculty of Medicine, National Heart & Lung Institute of Imperial College London. His research focuses on the Popeye protein family, a new class of mediators for the messenger cyclic AMP. Patients who carry mutations in the Popeye genes develop cardiac arrhythmia and muscle weakness. The investigation of disease mechanisms is the current research focus of Thomas Brand.