Markus F. Neurath

Markus Friedrich Neurath (born October 11, 1965 in Marburg ) is a German doctor ( gastroenterology ). He deals with autoimmune diseases of the bowel.

Neurath studied medicine at the Philipps University of Marburg from 1984 to 1990 and then was an intern at the 1st Medical Clinic and Polyclinic of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz , where he received his doctorate magna cum laude in 1990 . From 1992 he was a research assistant there and from 1992 to 1995 with Warren Strober at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. After that he was again an assistant in Mainz. In 1997 he completed his specialist degree in internal medicine, completed his habilitation in 1998 and was then senior physician. In 1999 he was visiting professor at the Clinic of Gastroenterology at Brigham and Woman's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston on a Fulbright Fellowship . From 2001 he was Professor of Molecular Gastroenterology at the 1st Medical Clinic and Polyclinic of the University of Mainz. There he was co-director of the clinic and director of the newly founded Institute for Molecular Medicine. He was also head of endoscopy there since 2003. He is currently the director of the Medical Clinic 1 at the University Hospital Erlangen .

He deals with the pathogenesis, diagnosis and therapeutic approaches of chronic inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease , which have an autoimmune component. In 2007 Neurath was able to show with scientists from the University of Cologne and the EMBL that even the absence of a single signal molecule (NF-Kappa-B) can trigger such a chronic inflammation in the intestine. The absence of the molecule leads to gaps in the upper intestinal layer, which triggers a violent (probably self-reinforcing) reaction of the immune system to the numerous bacteria found in the intestine.

He was also able to elucidate the molecular mechanism that leads to an increased risk of colon cancer in ulcerative colitis. VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor), which promotes the formation of new blood vessels and, as Neurath's group discovered, also plays a role in tumor formation in the early stages, plays a special role . Using the mouse model, his research group found that in chronic intestinal inflammation, the increased occurrence of interleukin 6 leads to the formation of VEGF receptors in intestinal cells.

He developed endomicroscopy procedures that enable the microscopic examination of the intestinal mucosa during a colonoscopy.

In 2000 he received the Theodor Frerichs Prize and the Thannhauser Prize of the German Society for Gastroenterology. In 2005 he received the Dr. Norbert Henning Prize from the University of Erlangen and in 2006 the Ernst Jung Prize . In 2008 he received the UEGF (United European Gastroenterology Federation) research award when it was first awarded.

He is married and has two children.

Web links

• Literature by and about Markus F. Neurath in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage in Erlangen
• Markus F. Neurath - Research on autoimmunity as a cause of intestinal diseases , press release of the University of Mainz 2007
• CV until 2004, pdf

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Title of the dissertation: Meniscus and cruciate ligament changes in rheumatoid arthritis
2. ↑ A possibility to prevent cancer in inflammatory bowel diseases , press release University of Erlangen  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.