Thomas F. Meyer

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Thomas F. Meyer (born August 7, 1952 in Mannheim ) is a German biologist and since 1994 Director of the Molecular Biology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.

Life

Thomas F. Meyer received his doctorate in 1979 from Heidelberg University . His dissertation deals with the topic "Gen II protein of bacteriophage fd and its role in the replication of viral double stranded DNA in vitro". Until 1980 he was a junior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg in the Department of Molecular Biology and then went to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as a research fellow from the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 1980 to 1982 and then as a visiting scientist to the Public Health Research Institute , New York City.

Until 1983 he went back to the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research. He then worked as an independent group leader at the Center for Molecular Biology at the University of Heidelberg (ZMBH).

In 1985 he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen , where he initially took up a permanent position as head of a research group. From 1990 to 2000 he was director of the infection biology department there. In 1994 he was one of the two founding directors of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin.

Awards and memberships

His numerous awards include the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society, the Heinz Maier Leibnitz Prize of the Federal Ministry of Science and Education, the 1989 main prize of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (DGHM), the Max Planck Research Prize (together with Paul Manning ) and the Aronson Prize of the State of Berlin. He has been a member of the Leopoldina since 2001 . For 2020 Thomas F. Meyer was awarded the Robert Koch Gold Medal for his life's work.

research

The research of the department focuses on questions about the molecular interaction of important pathogens with the cells of their host organism, especially humans. Various pathogen models, such as Helicobacter pylori , Chlamydia , Salmonella , Legionella and Neisseria , are used to gain basic knowledge about the interaction between pathogens and the host cell. One focus is on bacterial virulence mechanisms, receptor-mediated interaction with the host cell, pathogen-induced signal chains and mechanisms that are important for the accommodation of intracellular pathogens. In addition, the mechanisms of chronic infection and their consequences for the acquired immune response are analyzed, and cell damage, cellular aging and the development of cancer are examined. With the help of the H. pylori model, his group is investigating the pathogen-specific immune response and examining strategies for developing an effective vaccine against Helicobacter pylori. To achieve these scientific goals, a wide range of the most modern methods are used, such as high-resolution microscopy of living cells, functional gene analysis using RNA interference, and other global approaches in genome and proteome analysis.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Thomas F. Meyer at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on July 19, 2016.
  2. ↑ Robert Koch Medal 2020
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Thomas F.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biologist
DATE OF BIRTH 7th August 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim