Tim Trobisch
Early career Clinician Scientist
Tim Trobisch studied medicine at Mannheim Medical Faculty of University of Heidelberg and is currently a neurology resident and physician-scientist in the Division of Neuroimmunology at the same institution. His research focuses on the cellular and spatial organization of chronic neuroinflammation, particularly in progressive multiple sclerosis. During his doctoral research, he combined single-nucleus RNA sequencing with spatial RNA mapping to characterize glial heterogeneity across different CNS regions and identify disease-associated astrocyte and oligodendrocyte states. His subsequent collaborative work has extended this approach to the mapping of inflammatory tissue niches and cell-cell interactions in MS lesions, as well as mechanisms linking inflammation to cellular stress and neuronal injury.
Within NeuroFlame, Tim aims to connect genetic MS risk with local tissue pathology in the human brain. He will integrate genetic and single-nucleus transcriptomic data to prioritize MS risk genes and map them using targeted Xenium spatial transcriptomics in cortical and subcortical autopsy tissue. By identifying the lesion niches and cellular states in which these genes are active, he aims to uncover pathways associated with neurotoxicity or tissue preservation and generate new hypotheses for neuroprotective strategies in progressive MS.
Publications
An inflammation-associated lncRNA induces neuronal damage via mitochondrial dysfunction. Olazagoitia-Garmendia A., Rojas-Márquez H., Trobisch T. et al. Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 36, 102533 (2025).
Cell type mapping reveals tissue niches and interactions in subcortical multiple sclerosis lesions. Lerma-Martin C., Badia-I-Mompel P., Ramirez Flores R.O. et al. Nat Neurosci. 27, 2354-2365 (2024).
Cell type mapping of inflammatory muscle diseases highlights selective myofiber vulnerability in inclusion body myositis. Wischnewski S., Thäwel T., Ikenaga C. et al. Nat Aging. 4, 969-983 (2024).
Cross-regional homeostatic and reactive glial signatures in multiple sclerosis. Trobisch T., Zulji A., Stevens N.A. et al. Acta Neuropathol. 144, 987-1003 (2022).
Tryptophan metabolism drives dynamic immunosuppressive myeloid states in IDH-mutant gliomas. Friedrich M., Sankowski R., Bunse L. et al. Nat Cancer. 2, 723-740 (2021).
