Professor Tiganis completed his PhD (1994) at The University of Melbourne with Prof. Bruce E. Kemp, before pursuing post-doctoral training at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY with Prof. Nicholas K. Tonks. He established an independent laboratory at Monash University in 2000 and leads Monash University’s Biomedicine Discovery Institute Metabolism Diabetes & Obesity Program. His lab seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms contributing to obesity and diabetes, and how obesity and metabolism in turn affect tumour cells and the immune system to promote the development of cancer. His specific focus is on the biology of protein tyrosine phosphatases in metabolism, immunology and cancer.