Prof. Vasilis Ntziachristos

Director Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging and Director, Bioengineering Department

Prof. Vasilis Ntziachristos, Msc PhD

“Our research at Helmholtz Munich is driven by our interest to provide solutions that address critical unmet medical needs and positively impact healthcare and the well-being of society.”

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Academic Career and Research Areas

Vasilis Ntziachristos’ research focuses on the development of new methods for advancing well-being and accelerating discovery. His focus is the development of novel methods for prevention and early detection of disease, also serving as the means of administering more efficient treatment. His expertise span the fields of imaging, sensing and computation and his activities cover the entire spectrum from theoretical and methodological developments and basic discovery to clinical translation and entrepreneurship. Examples of his work involve the development of Fluorescent Molecular Imaging as means to improve guidance in surgery and the performance of diagnostic endoscopy as well as the development of Optoacoustic Imaging and Microscopy methods for advancing discovery and impacting healthcare. He is the founder of several companies including SurgVision BV which commercializes fluorescence imaging solutions for surgery, now under Bracco SpA, and iThera Medical GmbH, a company that commercializes optoacoustic technology.

 

Professor Vasilis Ntziachristos studied electrical engineering at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki. Following his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, he was then appointed Assistant Professor and Director of the Laboratory for Bio-Optics and Molecular Imaging at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital. Since 2007, he has served as Professor of Medicine and Electrical Engineering and the Chair of Biological Imaging at the Technical University of Munich and Director of the Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging at Helmholtz Munich. Prof. Ntziachristos is also currently Director of Bioengineering at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus and the Head of the Bioengineering Department at Helmholtz Munich.

Fields of Work and Expertise

Imaging

Microscopy

Optoacoustics

Photonics

Clinical Translation

Biological Engineering

Data Analytics Biomedical Engineering 

Computational Methods

Machine Learning

 

Professional Background

Since 2007

Full Professor C4/W3 of Medicine and Electrical Engineering, Chair of Biological Imaging at the Technical University of Munich Director, Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging

2002 - 2007

Assistant Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Bio-optics and Molecular Imaging, Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital

2002 - 2002

Instructor, Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital

The Problem Solver

The Entrepreneur

Media Coverage

Prof. Ntziachristos explains in this interview how optoacoustic imaging has revolutionized the field of biological imaging, and how these methods allow us to ‘listen’ to the human body to gain knowledge about diseases and to visualize biomarkers in vivo

Making the invisible visible

In 2013, Vasilis Ntziachristos received Germany’s most prestigious research funding prize: the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. He was honored for his internationally-recognized contributions in the field of optical imaging

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Price

Publications

npj Imaging 3:62 (2025)

Keizers, B. ; Stroet, M.C.M. ; Ali, M. ; Floru, S. ; Saliën, J. ; Mezzanotte, L. ; Delikatny, E.J. ; Gibbs, S.L. ; Giuliani, S. ; Gioux, S. ; Ingelberts, H. ; Kruijff, S. ; Ntziachristos, V. ; LaRochelle, E. ; Rogalla, S. ; Rosenthal, E.L. ; Samkoe, K.S. ; Tichauer, K.M. ; Vahrmeijer, A.L. ; Witjes, M.J.H. ; Voskuil, F.J. ; Gorpas, D. ; Hernot, S. ; van der Zaag, P.J.

Reflect: Reporting guidelines for preclinical, translational and clinical fluorescence molecular imaging studies.
Photoacoustics 46:100785 (2025)

Bader, M. ; Longo, A. ; Jüstel, D. ; Ntziachristos, V.

Low frequency detection in clinical multispectral optoacoustic tomography.
Nanoscale, DOI: 10.1039/d5nr03709c (2025)

Thomas, S.R. ; de Andrade Querino, A.L. ; Moreno-Alcántar, G. ; Tran, T. ; Rodríguez-Prieto, T. ; Qian, S. ; Di Giuseppe, D. ; Anzenhofer,P. ; Ntziachristos, V. ; Silva, H. ; Somoza, V. ; Fischer, R.A. ; Casini, A.

Water-soluble N-heterocyclic carbene stabilized gold nanoparticles by top-down synthesis: Performance in catalysis and photoacoustic imaging.
J. Dtsch. Dermatol. Ges., DOI: 10.1111/ddg.15883 (2025)

Deußing, M. ; Schuh, S. ; Thamm, J. ; Winkler, D. ; Schneider, S. ; Nau, T. ; Darsow, U. ; Schnabel, V. ; Ulrich, M. ; Nguyen, L.A. ; Frenzel, D. ; Fischer, C. ; Ruini, C. ; Ntziachristos, V. ; Kaatz, M. ; Kurzen, H. ; Kardorff, B. ; Herbst, R. ; Grunewald, S. ; Sattler, E. ; Welzel, J. ; Hartmann, D.

S1 guideline for imaging diagnostics for skin diseases.
Nat. Bio. Eng., DOI: 10.1038/s41551-025-01462-0 (2025)

Li, Q. ; Ali, Z. ; Zakian, C. ; Di Pietro, M. ; Honing, J. ; O'Donovan, M. ; Flisikowski, K. ; Sarantos, V. ; Pierre, G. ; Gloriod, J. ; Drexler, W. ; Ntziachristos, V.

Tethered optoacoustic and optical coherence tomography capsule endoscopy for label-free assessment of Barrett's oesophageal neoplasia.
npj Imaging 3:49 (2025)

Gehmeyr, M. ; Rojas López, M.B. ; Nitkunanantharajah, S. ; Preissl, H. ; Vosseler, A. ; Jumpertz von Schwartzenberg, R. ; Birkenfeld, A.L. ; Katsouli, N. ; Fasoula, N. ; Karlas, A. ; Kallmayer, M. ; Ziegler, A.-G. ; Jüstel, D. ; Ntziachristos, V.

Enhanced maximum intensity projection (eMIP) for improving the fidelity of optoacoustic images.
IEEE Trans. Bio. Med. Eng., DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2025.3594136 (2025)

Rauschendorfer, P. ; Thrapp, A. ; Srinivas, A. ; Carleton, R. ; Mauskapf, A. ; Griffin, K.N.R. ; Ntziachristos, V. ; Tearney, G.J. ; Jaffer, F.A.

High-speed intravascular near-infrared fluorescence-ultrasound imaging In vivo.
IEEE Sens. J. 25, 34459 - 34467 (2025)

Prebeck, A. ; Keulemans, G. ; Stahl, U. ; Jans, H. ; Rottenberg, X. ; Ntziachristos, V.

Comparison of bulk piezoelectric and opto-mechanical micromachined detectors for optoacoustic and ultrasound sensing.
npj Imaging 3:37 (2025)

Ko, V. ; Goess, M.C. ; Platz, L.I. ; Yuan, T. ; Chmyrov, A. ; Jüstel, D. ; Ruland, J. ; Ntziachristos, V. ; Keppler, S.J. ; Pleitez, M.A.

Author Correction: Fast histological assessment of adipose tissue inflammation by label-free mid-infrared optoacoustic microscopy.
Sci. Adv. 11:eadu7319 (2025)

Berger, C. ; Kim, M. ; Platz, L.I. ; Eigenberger, A. ; Prantl, L. ; Liu, P. ; Gujrati, V. ; Ntziachristos, V. ; Jüstel, D. ; Pleitez, M.A.

Bayesian reconstruction of rapidly scanned mid-infrared optoacoustic signals enables fast, label-free chemical microscopy.
Opt. Express. 33, 32943-32954 (2025)

Englert, L. ; Perleberg, B. ; Tayal, S. ; Wang, B. ; Huang, Y. ; Azeem, M. ; He, H. ; Stiel, A.-C. ; Ntziachristos, V.

Assessment of performance characteristics of photoswitchable bacteriophytochromes at different depths using optoacoustic mesoscopy.
Nat. Bio. Eng., DOI: 10.1038/s41551-025-01443-3 (2025)

Gasparin, F. ; Tietje, M.R. ; Katab, E. ; Nurdinova, A. ; Yuan, T. ; Chmyrov, A. ; Uluc, N. ; Jüstel, D. ; Bassermann, F. ; Ntziachristos, V. ; Pleitez, M.A.

Label-free protein-structure-sensitive live-cell microscopy for patient-specific assessment of myeloma therapy.
J. Eur. Acad. Dermatol. Venereol., DOI: 10.1111/jdv.20811 (2025)

Aguirre Bueno, J. ; Gasteiger, C. ; Hindelang, B. ; Seeger, M. ; Berezhnoi, A. ; Weidenfeld, I. ; Darsow, U. ; Stiel, A.-C. ; Steimle-Grauer, S.A. ; Posch, C. ; Biedermann, T. ; Ntziachristos, V.

Non-invasive characterization of melanoma depth at single-cell resolution.
Anal. Chem. 97, 12642-12653 (2025)

Kriukova, E. ; Mazurenka, M. ; Marcazzan, S. ; Tschurtschenthaler, M. ; Puppels, G.J. ; Glasl, S. ; Saur, D. ; Jesinghaus, M. ; Pouliou, M. ; Agelopoulos, M. ; Klinakis, A. ; Quante, M. ; Ripoll, J. ; Ntziachristos, V. ; Gorpas, D.

Probing field cancerization in the gastrointestinal tract using a hybrid raman and partial wave spectroscopy microscope.
Photoacoustics 44:100727 (2025)

Dehner, C. ; Lilaj, L. ; Ntziachristos, V. ; Zahnd, G. ; Jüstel, D.

Scale-equivariant deep model-based optoacoustic image reconstruction.
In: (Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing 2025, 26-29 January 2025, San Francisco). 2025.:1331905 (Proc. SPIE ; 13319)

Bader, M. ; Mc Larney, B.E. ; Pinker, K. ; Grimm, J. ; Jüstel, D. ; Ntziachristos, V.

Deciphering the spectra of breast cancer in multispectral optoacoustic tomography.
In: (Design and Quality for Biomedical Technologies XVIII, San Francisco). 1000 20th St, Po Box 10, Bellingham, Wa 98227-0010 Usa: Spie-int Soc Optical Engineering, 2025. DOI: 10.1117/12.3041715 (Proc. SPIE ; 13308)

Gorpas, D. ; Ntziachristos, V.

Multi-parametric standards for performance assessment and quality control of fluorescence molecular imaging and endoscopy systems.
Light Sci. Appl. 14:142 (2025)

Malekzadeh Najafabadi, J. ; Prakash, J. ; Razansky, D. ; Ripoll, J. ; Gujrati, V. ; Ntziachristos, V.

Nonlinearity of optoacoustic signals and a new contrast mechanism for imaging.