Group Leader
Gerd Meyer zu Hörste
Prof. Gerd Meyer zu Hörste, MD is an Attending Neurologist at the University Clinic Münster and head of an independent research group at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster. The overarching theme of his research is to understand the relationship between the nervous system and the immune system in health and disease combining training in experimental neurobiology, clinical neurology, and T lymphocyte biology.
Group leader - CV
Dr. Meyer zu Hörste received his M.D. from Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany in 2005. In his MD thesis work and during a post-doctoral period in the lab of Dr. Klaus-Armin Nave at the Max-Planck-Institute of Experimental Medicine in Göttingen he focused his work on genetically defined disorders of the nervous system and contributed a key proof-of-principle study describing the first experimental therapy of an inherited neuropathy. In 2006 Dr. Meyer zu Hörste moved to receive his residency training at the Department of Neurology of the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf. He developed his research interest towards immune reactions in the nervous system and contributed several studies regarding the antigen presenting function of myelin forming glia cells. This formed the basis for identifying a compound that redistributes antigen presenting molecules and ameliorates an animal model of inflammatory neuropathies. In addition, he generated a novel animal model of chronic inflammatory neuropathies and tested prognostic factors in this model. After receiving his Board Certification in Neurology in 2012 he joined the lab of Dr. Vijay Kuchroo lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and extended his basic immunology expertise. During this postdoctoral period Dr. Meyer zu Hörste identified the transcriptional mechanisms essential for the ability of pro-inflammatory T helper cells to induce autoimmunity. In addition, he identified and characterized a novel function of a cell surface receptor in controlling the balance between competing pro- and anti-inflammatory T helper cell subsets. While working as an Associated Scientist at the lab of Dr. Aviv Regev at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, MA he used RNA-sequencing and bioinformatic protein-protein network modeling to identify the mechanistic basis of these observations. In 2015 Dr. Meyer zu Hörste was awarded a competitive state-financed ‘Return-Fellowship’ and established an independent lab at the University Clinic Münster and the Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Germany. He received his Habilitation and venia legendi in Neurology in 2015. His research lab additionally receives project-related funding from the Hertie foundation and from the medical faculty Münster. Melding previous experience from diverse backgrounds the lab is now working at the intersection of neurology, neurobiology, and immunology to address how the immune system interacts with the nervous system and how this translates to neuroimmunological diseases.Post-Docs
Christine Anna Dambietz
Christine Anna Dambietz, is resident at the Department of Neurology with Institute of Translational Neurology.
Christineanna.Dambietz(at)ukmuenster(dot)deMartin Häring
Martin Häring studied biology at the University of Mainz and did his doctorate in Prof. Lutz's group on the cannabinoid system in various neuron populations. He then worked as a postdoc under the supervision of Patrik Ernfors at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, focusing on single cell analysis in the dorsal spinal cord and other centres of the somatosensory system. Je joined MzH lab in 2021. His project focuses on in age-related degenerative and inflammatory diseases of the nervous system.
martin.haering(at)ukmuenster(dot)deSvea Haessner
Svea Haessner, MD is resident at the Department of Neurology with Institute of Translational Neurology.
svea.haessner(at)ukmuenster(dot)deMichael Heming
Michael Heming, MD is a clinical scientist focusing on neuroimmunology, single cell transcriptomics and data analysis. He is employed as a resident physician in the Department of Neurology of the University Hospital Münster.
michaeloleg.heming(at)ukmuenster(dot)deI-Na Lu
I-Na Lu, PhD is a research scientist interested in immunology and next generation sequencing. She is in charge of the single cell sequencing platform of the lab, which aims at creating a profiling data repository with cellular and molecular analyses from patients with neuroimmunological disorders.
i-na.lu(at)ukmuenster(dot)deLouisa Müller-Miny
David Schafflick
David Schafflick received his M.Sc. in Biotechnology from Carolo-Wilhelmina University in Braunschweig in 2016. He joined the lab in May 2016. His interests are antigen-presentation, the interaction between antigen-presenting cells and T cells interaction, T-cell functionality, autoimmune diseases and inflammatory neuropathies. His main project focuses on antigen-presentation in EAE/MS. In addition, he studies the phenotype and functionality of lymphocyte subsets in the nervous system of different transgenic mouse lines and humans and is the operator of the group's fluorescence activated cell sorting tasks.
david.schafflick(at)ukmuenster(dot)dePhD students
Anna-Lena Börsch
Anna-Lena Börsch received her M.Sc. in Molecular Biomedicine from Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster in 2022. She already joined the lab during her early studies in 2016. She focused her bachelor thesis in 2019 on immune cell infiltrations in EAE using immune histological techniques. Since July 2022, she is doing her PhD in the MzH-group and is especially interested in cell trafficking in the meninges during health and disease (EAE/MS). In addition, she supports the research group with illustrations for publications.
anna-lena.boersch(at)ukmuenster(dot)deTimm Kühnel
Timm Kühnel received his M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Münster in February 2022, with a focus on Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning. He joined the MzH lab in March 2022 as a research associate with an option for a doctorate.
Interests:- Computer Vision
- Machine Learning & Pattern Recognition
- Interdisciplinary Research
- Computer-aided Advancement of Modern Medicine
t.kuehnel(at)ukmuenster(dot)de
Sheng-Hsiang Shen
Sheng-Hsiang Shen received his M. Sc. in Medical Life Sciences from Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel in 2018. He is interested in neuroimmunology with the focus on meningeal immunity. In 2021, he joined the MzH lab.
sheng-hsiang.shen(at)ukmuenster(dot)deJolien Wolbert
Jolien Wolbert received her M.Sc. in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences from Leiden University, The Netherlands in 2016. She is interested in T cell immunology and the role of T cells in autoimmune diseases. In 2017, she joined the MzH lab and studies non-pathogenic Th17 cells and their contribution to intestinal inflammation and to inflammation of the central nervous system in specific genetically engineered mouse lines.
jolien.wolbert(at)ukmuenster(dot)deTechnical Assistants
Julia Tietz
Julia Tietz completed her training as a biological-technical assistant at the Berufskolleg Olsberg. From 2006-2016 she worked for WWU at the Institute of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology in the field of molecular biological strain development. Then from 2016-2021 in an independent microbiology laboratory at the research department. Since 2021 she has been working in the Meyer zu Hörste research group. She supports the research group in sample processing for single cell RNA sequencing related projects, circularization of cDNA and also collaboration in method establishment in the field of total RNA isolation and sequencing.
julia.tietz(at)ukmuenster(dot)deStudent Assistants
Carolin Lewe
Carolin Lewe is a B.Sc. student at Münster University and works in the field of neuroimmunology. She is primarily researching cross-presenting dendritic cells.
Luca Marongiu
Luca Marongiu is a M.Sc. student and works as a student assistant in the Meyer zu Hörste research group.
Alumni
Previous Lab Members
2016 - 2018 Tobias Lautwein, PhD