[2] Tschopp studied chemistry with his 1974 Diplom thesis supervised by Joachim Seelig at the Biozentrum University of Basel.
[3] As a postdoc Tschopp was supervised by Hans J. Müller-Eberhard at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla.
They elucidated the molecular mechanisms of caspase-8's involvement in cell death processes and in nonapoptotic signalling pathways.
This led to the development of a new drug, Belimumab, approved by the FDA in 2011 for systemic lupus erythematosus.
[7] Tschopp received several awards, including the European Cell Death Organization's Career Award in 2006,[8] the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 2008,[9] and the Novartis Prize for Clinical Immunology (shared with Charles Dinarello) in 2010.