Professor Dr Gero Miesenböck

Research Priorities: Optogenetics, light stimulation of nerve cells, circuits in the brain, neuronal bases of behaviour
Gero Miesenböck is an Austrian neuroscientist. He is considered one of the founders of optogenetics, which combines optical technology and genetics to switch individual cell types in the brain on and off. This allows the arrangement and function of neural circuits to be explored.
Gero Miesenböck has engineered light-controlled molecular switches into brain cells which allow their electrical activity to be controlled remotely. To achieve this, he genetically modified nerve cells so that they produce proteins that react to light. He thereby succeeded in controlling the behaviour of animals for the first time. The great advantage of the method is that only certain types of cells produce the light-sensitive proteins. This allows the roles of different cell types in sensory perception, movement, cognition, or emotion to be disentangled.
Research groups around the world are working with this method and analysing mechanisms in the brain. They research how decisions are made, how sleep and appetite are regulated, why people fall ill with psychoses and which factors influence behaviour and memory. The method could be used in future to improve the treatment of diseases such as Parkinson’s, epilepsy or anxiety disorders.