Manfred Schliwa

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Manfred Schliwa (born December 6, 1945 ) is a German cell biologist and expert on molecular motors and cellular movement.

Career

Manfred Schliwa first studied law and then biology , anthropology and paleontology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main . In 1975 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the cellular mechanism of color change in fish. In 1978 he was one of the first to receive a Heisenberg grant from the German research community. He used this for research stays with Keith Porter in Boulder , Colorado and Gary Borisy in Madison , Wisconsin . In 1981 he was appointed to the University of California at Berkeley , where he taught and researched initially as an assistant professor, from 1984 as an associate professor and from 1987 as a full professor. In 1991 he followed a call to the chair for cell biology at the medical faculty of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . He stayed there until his retirement in 2011. In the same year he was appointed senior professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main , where he teaches in the master’s course in cell biology.

Research priorities

Since his doctoral thesis with Jürgen Bereiter-Hahn, his interest has been the structure of the cytoskeleton and the elucidation of the movement mechanisms of and in cells. In Berkeley, he and his wife, Ursula Euteneuer, set up a laboratory that researched cellular movements using a wide range of methods. Among other things, they used the chance find of a single-celled organism, later identified as a giant foraminifer, in the ornamental fish aquarium in his office as a unique model system for studying intracellular movements (see Section 5, Publications). In Munich, the focus of the work shifted to molecular and biophysical single-molecule studies on motor proteins such as kinesin and myosin using optical tweezers (laser trap) and internal total reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRF) microscopy.

further activities

Editor or co-editor of (inter alia) European Journal of Cell Biology, PLoS Biology, Molecular Biology of the Cell, International Review of Cell and Molecular Biology, Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, Protoplasma, Journal of Protozoology, Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology

Awards

  • 2007: Carl Zeiss Prize, German Society for Cell Biology
  • 2005: Elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization ( EMBO )
  • 1999: Elected member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists ( Leopoldina )
  • 1996–2000: Rothschild Fellow, Institut Curie, Paris
  • 1988: Philips Distinguished Lecturer, Haverford College
  • 1978–1982: Heisenberg grant

Publications

(Selection)
  • The Cytoskeleton: An Introductory Survey. Springer-Verlag, Vienna / New York 1986, ISBN 3-211-81884-7 .
  • Molecular Motors. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2003, ISBN 3-527-30594-7 .
  • The evolving complexity of cytoplasmic structure. In: Nature Reviews Mol. Cell Biol. Volume 3, No. 4, 2002, pp. 291-295.
as a co-author
  • M. Schliwa, U. Euteneuer: A microtubule-independent component may be involved in granule transport in pigment cells. In: Nature. Volume 273, 1978, pp. 556-558.
  • U. Euteneuer, M. Schliwa: Persistent, directional motility of cells and cytoplasmic fragments in the absence of microtubules. In: Nature. Volume 310, 1984, pp. 58-61.
  • MP Koonce, J. Tong, U. Euteneuer, M. Schliwa: Active sliding between cytoplasmic microtubules. In: Nature. Volume 328, 1987, pp. 737-739.
  • U. Euteneuer, MP Koonce, KK Pfister, M. Schliwa: An ATPase with properties expected for the organelle motor of the giant amoeba, Reticulomyxa. In: Nature. Volume 332, 1988, pp. 176-178.
  • A. Ashkin, K. Schütze, JM Dziedzic, U. Euteneuer, M. Schliwa: Force generation of organelle transport in vivo measured by an infrared laser trap. In: Nature. Volume 348, 1990, pp. 346-348.
  • U. Henningsen, M. Schliwa: Reversal in the direction of movement of a molecular motor. In: Nature. Volume 389, 1997, pp. 93-96.
  • M. Schliwa, G. Woehlke: Molecular motors. In: Nature. Volume 422, 2003, pp. 759-765.
  • M. Schliwa: Biological nanomotors. In: CA Mirkin, CM Niemayer (eds.): Nanobiotechnology: Concepts, Applications, and Perspectives. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2007, pp. 383-400

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Manfred Schliwa (with CV) at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on July 20, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Schliwa, Manfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cell biologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1945