Lucas Schirmer
Lucas Schirmer is a physician-scientist whose research focuses on unraveling the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive acute and chronic neuroinflammation. He holds a W3 Heisenberg Professorship for Translational Neurobiology at Heidelberg University and serves as Division Chief of Neuroimmunology at the Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Mannheim. He studied medicine in Göttingen, completed his clinical training in neurology at the Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Technical University of Munich, and pursued postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Cambridge. His laboratory integrates model systems with high-resolution, multimodal analyses of human CNS and muscle pathology to dissect molecular pathways underlying progressive neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. A central emphasis lies on developing multimodal data frameworks that link clinical trajectories, imaging, and molecular profiling with genomic and proteomic signatures. This integrative approach enables investigations from single-cell and spatial resolution to population-scale cohorts, revealing how genetic predisposition and immune context shape disease heterogeneity and progression. Within FOR 5705, his research focuses on understanding neuronal damage and dysregulation in response to focal white-matter injury, a process commonly observed in human diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
Publications
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).
Neuron-oligodendrocyte potassium shuttling at nodes of Ranvier protects against inflammatory demyelination. Kapell H., Fazio L., Dyckow J. et al. J Clin Invest. 133, e164223 (2023).
Neuronal vulnerability and multilineage diversity in multiple sclerosis. Schirmer L., Velmeshev D., Holmqvist S. et al. Nature. 573, 75-82 (2019).
Single-cell genomics identifies cell type-specific molecular changes in autism. Velmeshev D., Schirmer L., Jung D. et al. Science. 364, 685-689 (2019).
Links
Institution
Heidelberg
