I am a professor for Experimental Biophysics and Mechanobiology leading an international research group of 10 international scientists and several external clinical and academic collaborators. Driven by the ultimate goal to bring research and inventions from bench to bedside. Research interests focus on three main areas:
Immunology - mechanical/biological based understanding of lymphocyte activation and expansion for clinical applications
Oncology - cell-matrix interactions that guide the control of gene expression and regulation
Neurobiology - protein aggregation and phase transition toward motor neuronal disease prevention, intervention, and the development of next generation therapies.
12/ 2017 – present Junior Professor for Experimental Biophysics/Mechanobiology, Institute for Biophysics, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
2017 – 2021 HFSP Young Investigator Awardee, Oberassistent, Department of Health Sciences and
Technology, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2015 – 2017 ARC DECRA Fellow, EMBL Australia Node in Single Molecule Science, University of New South Wales, Australia
2014 – 2015 Vice-Chancellor Fellow/ Lecturer, Centre for Vascular Research, University of New South Wale, Sydney, Australia, with Prof. Katharina Gaus
2012 – 2014 FEBS FELLOW, Institute of Applied Physics,Vienna University of Technology, with Prof. Gerhard Schütz
2010 – 2011 Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratory of Biological Oriented Materials, Department of
Materials, ETH Zurich, with Prof. Viola Vogel
Education
2010 Ph.D. (Material Sciences, Biomaterials), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
2007 Diploma (Physics, Biophysics), TU Dresden/ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
2004 Vordiplom (Physics, Quantummechanics), TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Entrepreneurship
Founder and CEO of immUni: Nanoporous substrates for lymphocyte activation towards adoptive immune-therapy.
