Thomas Kuner

Thomas Kuner studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg and received his MD in 1998. He did his postdoctoral training at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, USA, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, USA. He was a group leader from 2000 to 2006 in the Department of Cell Physiology at the Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. In 2006 was appointed as a full professor at the Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Heidelberg University and became Director of the Department of Functional Neuroanatomy in 2012. His laboratory focuses on structure-function relationships of the nervous system across scales and technology development. Recent discoveries include synaptic communication between neurons and tumor cells and neuronal cell death as a novel mechanism underlying chronic neuropathic pain. The latter findings sparked his interest in the mechanisms of neuronal inflammatory stress responses. Within the FOR 5705 he aims at understanding the response of neurons to focal white-matter injury using a multilevel approach. The close collaboration with Lucas Schirmer will establish a link between gene expression and structure-function changes in the context of neuroinflammation.

Publications

Accurate classification of major brain cell types using in vivo imaging and neural network processing. Das Gupta A., Asan L., John J. et al. PLoS Biol. 21, e3002357 (2023).

Glioblastoma hijacks neuronal mechanisms for brain invasion. Venkataramani V., Yang Y., Schubert M.C. et al. Cell. 185, 2899-2917.e31 (2022).

Neuropathic pain caused by miswiring and abnormal end organ targeting. Gangadharan V., Zheng H., Taberner F.J. et al. Nature. 606, 137-145 (2022).

Automated highly multiplexed super-resolution imaging of protein nano-architecture in cells and tissues. Klevanski M., Herrmannsdoerfer F., Sass S. et al. Nat Commun. 11, 1552 (2020).

Glutamatergic synaptic input to glioma cells drives brain tumour progression. Venkataramani V., Tanev D.I., Strahle C. et al. Nature. 573, 532-538 (2019).

Links

Department of Functional Neuroanatomy

Institution