Leibniz Chairs

Alessandro Cellerino is the Leibniz Chair at the Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) and is a professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. In 2003, Cellerino came up with the idea of establishing the very short-lived turquoise killifish as a new animal model in aging research (it has a life expectancy of just 4–12 months). This small fish from south-east Africa ages in a similar way to humans, but much faster. Since Cellerino’s fundamental research, the turquoise killifish has become the shortest-lived vertebrate to be raised under laboratory conditions. Cellerino has been connected to the FLI since 2006, when he was a junior research group leader. Today within the FLI, he leads a Pisa-based associated research group on ‘Biology of Aging: Aging in Fast Motion’.

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Irmgard Förster holds a Leibniz Chair at the IUF – Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine. She is Professor of Immunology and Environment at the Life and Medical Sciences (LIMES) Institute of the University of Bonn. As a human biologist, Irmgard Förster conducts research into environmental influences and their impacts on the immune system, which can lead to allergies and other diseases. A particular focus of her research is on the function of dendritic cells and macrophages in the skin and intestinal mucosa. She has been closely connected to the IUF since her joint appointment by the University of Düsseldorf and the IUF in 2004. As a working group leader, she made a significant contribution to the development and expansion of immunotoxicology research there. Even after her transfer to the University of Bonn, a large number of links still exist with the IUF, including a liaison group on congenital immunity and extrinsic skin ageing.

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Karin Jandeleit-Dahm is the Leibniz Chair at the German Diabetes Center (DDZ), Leibniz Center for Diabetes Research at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, and is Professor of Medicine and Deputy Head of the Diabetes Department at Monash University in Melbourne. Jandeleit-Dahm has published pioneering research findings on the role of oxidative stress in diabetic complications, especially in diabetic kidney disease (nephropathy). These fundamental findings led to clinical trials for the treatment of people with type 1 diabetes and diabetic nephropathy. Jandeleit-Dahm has been associated with the DDZ since 2018, where she now leads the research group on Diabetic Nephropathy, which studies mitochondrial dysfunction.

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Anna-Maria Mandalakes is Leibniz Chair at FZB - Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center, and Professor of Pediatrics and Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, where she is head of the Division of Global and Immigrant Health and is responsible for the Global Tuberculosis Program at Texas Children's Hospital. She is also an associate professor in the School of Public Health at The University of Texas Health Science Center Houston in the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences. For nearly three decades, her translational research has focused on the identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and the prevention of tuberculosis disease in children. Anna-Maria Mandalakes has been closely associated with FZB in the field of tuberculosis research and prevention of tuberculosis disease since 2015.

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Robert McMeeking is the Leibniz Chair at the Leibniz Institute for New Materials (INM) and is Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the University of California in Santa Barbara, USA. He is one of the world’s leading material researchers in the field of theoretical modelling and the numerical simulation of complex materials and their underlying mechanisms. He has made ground-breaking scientific contributions, especially in various areas of theoretical mechanics, including on batteries and energy storage systems, piezoelectric actuator materials and complex contact mechanics. McMeeking has been working closely with the INM for over ten years. He currently coordinates a Humboldt Network, in which the INM is involved, on modelling bio-inspired adhesive technologies, and is closely involved with an international project within the Leibniz Competition system.

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Fritz Melchers is the Leibniz Chair at the German Rheumatism Research Centre (DRFZ) in Berlin. He is one of the founders of the DRFZ. In 1987, under his chairmanship, an international group of experts submitted the concept of a rheumatism research centre to the Senate of Berlin. The proposal was implemented in 1988 with the establishment of the DRFZ. Its structure, a flat organisation with small, independent research groups, followed the model of the Basel Institute for lmmunology, which Melchers ran from 1980 to 2000. As a member of the DRFZ Foundation Board (1988 to 2003), Melchers opened up pioneering collaboration possibilities between the DRFZ, the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology and the Charité Clinic for Rheumatology. Since 2017, he has been head of the Lymphocyte Development research group at the DRFZ.

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William O’Reilly is the Leibniz Chair at the German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institute for Maritime History (DSM) in Bremerhaven. At the DSM he is involved in a number research projects, the development of a Transatlantic Mobility and Migration Department and a planned exhibition on the topic of ‘Bremerhaven and Migration’. O’Reilly’s research focuses on connections between Central European ports in the 19th century. The DSM offers the historian comprehensive archives and materials to investigate the importance of the ports in Bremen and Bremerhaven in the 19th century. O’Reilly is currently Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Society of Arts.

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Lucia A. Reisch is the Leibniz Chair at the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology (BIPS) and is a full professor at the Copenhagen Business School and a visiting professor at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen. Her research focuses on behavioural public policy, sustainable consumption and consumer policy. She became a life member of the National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) in 2017. Reisch has been closely associated with the BIPS since 2006, when she worked on the IDEFICS/I.Family project on the causes of lifestyle-related diseases. Among other things, she is currently supporting the Policy Evaluation Network (PEN), evaluating the approaches, implementation and effectiveness of policy measures to promote healthy eating and physical exercise in the population.

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Darrell G. Schlom is the Leibniz Chair at the Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth (IKZ) and is the Herbert Fisk Johnson Professor of Industrial Chemistry at Cornell University. Schlom came up with the idea of proposing rare earth scandate substrate crystals for a joint research project to establish ‘strain engineering’ in the ‘oxide world’ and research novel material properties in thin-film heterostructures. This pioneering work was presented to the scientific community in a joint Nature publication in 2002. Today, Schlom’s continuing collaboration with the IKZ has led to the emergence of an independent worldwide academic research landscape.

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Koji Tokoyoda holds a Leibniz Chair at the German Rheumatism Research Centre (DRFZ) in Berlin and is a professor at Tottori University in Yonago, Japan. He is also a visiting professor at Chiba University, Japan. He has worked at the DRFZ for around eleven years, first as a postdoc and then as a group leader. His research focuses on immunological memory and he has managed to produce key evidence of the niche concept in this field. This ground-breaking concept has a significant influence on fundamental studies looking at the preservation of memory lymphocytes, and on clinical trials studying the depletion of pathogenic memory lymphocytes in chronic inflammatory diseases. As a science organiser, Koji Tokoyoda is a key figure in German-Japanese collaboration in the field of immunology.

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Giulio Tononi is the Leibniz Chair at the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN) in Magdeburg. He is Director of the Center for Sleep and Consciousness at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his research into consciousness and sleep has made considerable contributions to modern neuroscience. A qualified medical doctor, Tononi did his PhD on neuroscience and the regulation of sleep. His synaptic homoeostasis hypothesis claims that sleep renormalises synaptic strength. In his basic research on human consciousness, Tononi developed the integrated information theory, which describes what consciousness is and how it originates. Tononi has collaborated with LIN for many years, especially on questions of mind wandering and consciousness regulation. In his inaugural lecture as Leibniz Chair, he spoke about Gottfried Leibniz’s mill analogy of perception and consciousness.

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Thierry Wirth is Leibniz Chair at FZB - Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center, and Professor of Evolutionary Genomics with proven expertise in molecular epidemiology of bacterial pathogens at the Department of Systematics and Evolution, Natural History Museum, Paris. His scientific focus is on the estimation and prediction of epidemics using machine learning technologies and Bayesian statistics. Other research focuses on the rise of antibiotic resistance and secondary compensatory mutations in MDR strains. In addition, Thierry Wirth focuses on the coalescence, demography, and origin of major human pathogens, including the impact of globalization and human migration on pathogen spread. Thierry Wirth has been closely associated with the FZB in the field of tuberculosis research since 2005.

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