Volker Heussler

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Volker Theo Heussler (* 1962 ) is a German parasitologist , known for research on malaria .

Heussler studied at the University of Karlsruhe , where he graduated from the Institute for Genetics in 1990 (on the immune response to the pathogen causing coastal fever Theileria parva ) and then went to the Institute for Parasitology at the University of Bern , where he received his doctorate in 1993. His dissertation topic was Protease gene expression in Fasciola hepatica and isolation of DNA probes specific for Fasciola hepatica . As a post-doctoral student , he was at the International Lifestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi in the vaccine development and immunology department from 1993 to 1996 . From 1996 to 2001 he headed a research group at the Institute for Animal Pathology at the University of Bern as a junior group leader and from 2002 to 2010 the Malaria I working group at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg. In 2005 he completed his habilitation at the University of Bern ( Theileria parva and Theileria annulata: Parasite survival strategies and host cell transformation ). Since 2010 he has been Professor of Molecular Parasitology and Cell Biology at the University of Bern.

Heussler and his group are investigating the (not yet pathogenic) liver stage of the malaria parasite and are pursuing the goal of developing vaccines and therapies against the pathogen before it reaches the pathogenic blood stage. After a chance observation of the detachment of parasite-filled liver cells under the microscope in May 2003, he and his group clarified how the pathogen gets from the liver stage to the blood stage: it forces the infected liver cell (in which 30,000 or more new parasite cell nuclei formed) into membrane parts to produce ("merosomes") in which the parasite can hide from the human immune system and get into the blood. The pathogen uses even more sophisticated deception maneuvers, for example by keeping some parasites in the host cell and destroying them there by the immune system and by developing methods to hide the cell death that actually occurred in the merosome from the immune system.

In the mouse model, Heussler also worked with Portuguese scientists to develop new vaccination strategies based on the liver stage of the pathogen. For this purpose, genetically modified pathogens have been developed that multiply in liver cells (and activate the immune system), but cannot leave them.

In 2007 he was awarded the Glaxo Smith Kline Foundation's Prize for Basic Medical Research for the discovery of the merosomes.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CV. (PDF; 105 kB) (No longer available online.) Izb.unibe.ch, archived from the original on April 11, 2014 ; Retrieved May 3, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.izb.unibe.ch
  2. ↑ Angela Grosse Malaria pathogens build Trojan horses , Hamburger Abendblatt, July 16, 2007
  3. ↑ Angelika Sturm, Rogerio Amino, Claudia van de Sand, Tommy Regen, Silke Retzlaff, Annika Rennenberg, Andreas Krueger, Jörg-Matthias Pollok, Robert Menard, Volker T. Heussler: "Manipulation of Host Hepatocytes by the Malaria Parasite for Delivery into Liver Sinusoids ", Science, Vol. 313, 2006, pp. 1287-1290
  4. ↑ Receiving the 2007 Glaxo Smith Kline Foundation Prize
personal data
SURNAME Heussler, Volker
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heussler, Volker Theo (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German parasitologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1962