Prof. Dr. Gil Westmeyer

PI: Stage

gil.westmeyerspam prevention@helmholtz-munich.de

Prof. Dr. Gil Westmeyer

Director of the Institute for Synthetic Biology (ISBM)

"In biomedicine, there is a progression from the synthesis of small molecular drugs via the biotechnological production of proteins to the biological engineering of theranostic cells. We seek to promote a careful and safe development in this direction by crafting molecular tools to monitor and control cellular circuits.”

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Career

Gil Westmeyer studied medicine and philosophy in Munich and conducted his doctoral work on the molecular basis of Alzheimer’s disease in Christian Haass’ laboratory in Munich before receiving a part of his clinical education at Harvard Medical School.

Starting in 2005, he worked as a postdoctoral Fellow with Alan Jasanoff at M.I.T in the Departments of Biological Engineering and Brain & Cognitive Sciences. In 2011, he joined Helmholtz Munich as a Young Investigators’ group leader and the Technical University of Munich as an assistant professor in 2012.

Since 2021, Gil is the Director of the Institute for Synthetic Biomedicine (ISBM) at Helmholtz Munich. He is also Professor of Neurobiological Engineering at TUM.

ISBM develops and deploys next-generation biotechniques for molecular sensing and actuation of distributed cellular processes to reverse engineer cell-circuit function and guide future cell therapies.

Skills and Expertise

Mammalian cell engineering Synthetic biology

Genetic engineering Molecular imaging

Gil Westmeyer about his work

"Our work focuses on mammalian cell engineering of next-generation molecular sensors, actuators, and genetic functions for molecular imaging and remote spatiotemporal control of cellular processes across multiple scales.
We apply these biosynthetic devices to establish bidirectional communication with cellular circuits in organoids and preclinical model organisms to reverse-engineer cellular network function and aid future imaging-controlled regenerative and cell therapies.”

Molecule structure icon form lines and triangles

Professional Career

2021

Director of the Institute for Synthetic Biomedicine (ISBM)

2019

Professor of Neurobiological Engineering – TUM School of Natural Sciences & TUM School of Medicine, TUM

2012

Assistant Professor of Molecular Imaging – Technical University of Munich (TUM)

2011

Young Investigators’ Group Leader Helmholtz Center Munich

2005

Postdoctoral Fellow - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Departments of Biological Engineering & Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Honors and Awards

2019
ERC Consolidator Grant
2015
Elected member of the Young Academy of Europe
2012
ERC Starting Grant

Media highlights

Visualizing the invisible

Gil Westermeyer on Schwanke meets Science
Start Minute 9:05

watch interview
Prof. Dr. Gil Westmeyer, HPC

Most important publications

Truong, J., Phlairaharn, T., Eßwein, B., Gruber, C., Tümen, D., Baligács, E., Armbrust, N., Vaccaro, F.L., Lederer, E., Beck, E.M., Geilenkeuser, J., Göppert, S., Krumwiede, L., Grätz, C., Raffl, G., Schwarz, D., Zirngibl, M., Živanić, M., Beyer, M., Körner, J.D., Santl, T., Evsyukov, V., Strauß, T., Schwarz, S., Höglinger, G., Heutink, P., Doll. S., Conrad, M., Giesert, F., Wurst, W., Westmeyer, G. G.

Non-invasive and high-throughput interrogation of exon-specific isoform expression

Sigmund, F., Pettinger, S., Kube, M., Schneider, F., Schifferer, M., Schneider, S., Efremova, M., Pujol-Martí, J., Aichler, M., Walch, A., Misgeld, T., Dietz, H., Westmeyer, G.G

Iron-sequestering nanocompartments as multiplexed Electron Microscopy gene reporters

Lauri, A., Soliman, D., Omar, M., Stelzl, A., Ntziachristos, V., Westmeyer, G.G.

Whole-cell photoacoustic sensor based on pigment relocalization

Sigmund, F., Massner, C., Erdmann, P., Stelzl, A., Rolbieski, H., Fuchs, H., de Angelis, M.H., Desai, M., Bricault, S., Jasanoff, A., Ntziachristos, V., Plitzko, J., Westmeyer G.G

Bacterial encapsulins as orthogonal compartments for mammalian cell engineering

Massner, C., Sigmund, F., Pettinger, S., Seeger, M., Hartmann, C., Ivleva N., Niessner, R., Fuchs H., Hrabé de Angelis, M., Stelzl, A., Koonakampully, N., Rolbieski, H., Wiedwald, U., Spasova, M., Wurst, W., Ntziachristos, V., Winklhofer, M., Westmeyer, G.G

Genetically controlled lysosomal entrapment of superparamagnetic ferritin for multimodal and multiscale imaging and actuation with low tissue attenuation

Myklatun, A.*, Lauri, A.*, Eder, S.H.K., Cappetta, M., Shcherbakov, D., Wurst, W., Winklhofer, M., Westmeyer, G.G

Zebrafish and medaka offer insights into the neurobehavioral correlates of vertebrate magnetoreception

Symvoulidis, P., Lauri, A., Stefanoiu, A., Cappetta, M., Schneider, S., Jia, H., Stelzl, A., Koch, M., Perez, C.C., Myklatun, A., Renninger, S., Chmyrov, A., Lasser, T., Wurst, W., Ntziachristos, V., Westmeyer, G.G

NeuBtracker-imaging neurobehavioral dynamics in freely behaving fish.

Roberts, S., Seeger, M., Jiang, Y., Mishra, A., Sigmund, F., Stelzl, A., Lauri, A., Symvoulidis, P., Rolbieski, H., Preller, M., Deán-Ben, X.L., Razansky, D., Orschmann, T., Desbordes, S.C., Vetschera, P., Bach, T., Ntziachristos, V., Westmeyer, G.G

Calcium Sensor for Photoacoustic Imaging

Stiel, A.C., Deán-Ben, X.L., Jiang, Y., Ntziachristos, V., Razansky, D., Westmeyer, G.G., 2015

High-contrast imaging of reversibly switchable fluorescent proteins via temporally unmixed multispectral optoacoustic tomography

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