Optogenetic analyses of neuronal network function and synaptic transmission in Caenorhabditis elegans

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A. Gottschalk
Studied chemistry (in Frankfurt, Edinburgh, Marburg), with a focus on molecular biology and biochemistry. In his PhD thesis (1999, in the lab of R. Lührmann) he isolated spliceosomal ribonucleoprotein complexes from yeast and characterized their protein components. Relatively late, i.e., as a postdoc (2000–2003, in the lab of W. Schafer, University of California, San Diego, USA), he turned his attention to neurobiology. Here, he isolated nAChRs from the neuromuscular system of the nematode C. elegans and identified new nAChR-associated proteins. He accepted a junior professorship at Goethe University in Frankfurt at the end of 2003. It was here that an extraordinary cooperation arose: Together with G. Nagel and E. Bamberg (MPIBP) he was able to show in 2005 for the first time that channelrhodopsin can be used in an animal to trigger coordinated behavior. In 2007, the same constellation led to the establishment of halorhodopsin as an inhibitory optogenetic tool in the nervous system. These initial proof-of-principle papers have been followed by several publications to develop optogenetic tools and methods for the analysis of small neuronal networks and synaptic transmission. Alexander Gottschalk has been a Heisenberg professor for molecular cell biology and neurobiochemistry since 2010. He is a member of the cluster of excellence ‘Macromolecular complexes’, the SFBs 807 and 1080, as well as the FOR 1279.

Published/Copyright: February 25, 2017

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Published Online: 2017-2-25

Published in Print: 2014-12-1

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