CV Markus Meißner

 

Markus Meißner studied biology at the University of Regensburg and received his PhD from the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg in 2002. Between 2002 and 2004, he worked at the Imperial College in London and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne on a Feodor-Lynen-Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. During this time he established reverse genetic tools to study host cell invasion by apicomplexan parasites.

In 2004, Markus Meißner returned to Germany and led a BMBF-funded BioFuture research group at the Center for Infectious Diseases at the University Hospital in Heidelberg, which focused on vesicular transport linked to the unique secretory organelles of Toxoplasma gondii. In 2009 he received a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship and accepted a position as “Scottish University Life Science Association (SULSA)” readership at the Wellcome trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology at the University of Glasgow. Thereafter, he received an ERC Starting grant in 2012 and was appointed full Professor. In 2014 he succeeded in renewing his Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship.

Markus Meißner accepted the position as Chair for Experimental Parasitology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Ludwig-Maximilian-University (LMU), Munich in 2017. His research interests focus on unique aspects of apicomplexan cell biology, including mechanisms involved in host cell invasion and egress.

Selected Publications:

  1. Melatti C, Pieperhoff M, Lemgruber L, Pohl E, Sheiner L, Meissner M (2019) A unique dynamin-related protein is essential for mitochondrial fission in Toxoplasma gondii. PLoS Pathog 15:e1007512.
  2. Stortz, JF, Del Rosario M, Singer M, Wilkes JM, Meissner M, Das S (2019) Formin-2 drives polymerisation of actin filaments enabling segregation of apicoplasts and cytokinesis in Plasmodium falciparum . Elife 8:e49030.
  3. Periz J, Del Rosario M, McStea A, Gras S, Loney C, Wang L, Martin-Fernandez ML, Meissner M (2019) A highly dynamic F-actin network regulates transport and recycling of micronemes in Toxoplasma gondii vacuoles. Nat Commun 10:4183.
  4. Harding, CR, Gow M, Kang JH, Shortt E, Manalis SR, Meissner M, Lourido S (2019) Alveolar proteins stabilize cortical microtubules in Toxoplasma gondii . Nat Commun 10:401.
  5. Gras S, Jimenez-Ruiz E, Klinger CM, Schneider K, Klingl A, Lemgruber L, Meissner M (2019) An endocytic-secretory cycle participates in Toxoplasma gondii in motility. PLoS Biol 17:e3000060.
  6. Del Rosario, M, Periz J, Pavlou JG, Lyth O, Latorre-Barragan F, Das S, Pall GS, Stortz JF, Lemgruber L, Whitelaw JA, Baum J, Tardieux I, Meissner M (2019) Apicomplexan F-actin is required for efficient nuclear entry during host cell invasion. EMBO Rep 20:e48896.
  7. Periz J., Whitelaw J, Harding C, Gras S, Del Rosario Minina MI, Latorre-Barragan F, Lemgruber L, Reimer MA, Insall R, Heaslip A,, Meissner M (2017) Toxoplasma gondii F-actin forms an extensive filamentous network required for material exchange and parasite maturation. Elife 6:e24119.
  8. Das S, Lemgruber L, Tay CL, Baum J, Meissner M (2017) Multiple essential functions of Plasmodium falciparum actin-1 during malaria blood-stage development. BMC Biol 15:70.
  9. Collins CR, Das S, Wong EH, Andenmatten N, Stallmach R, Hackett F, Herman JP, Muller S, Meissner M, Blackman MJ (2013) Robust inducible Cre recombinase activity in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum enables efficient gene deletion within a single asexual erythrocytic growth cycle. Mol Microbiol 88: 687-701.
  10. Andenmatten N, Egarter S, Jackson AJ, Jullien N, Herman JP, Meissner M (2013) Conditional genome engineering in Toxoplasma gondii uncovers alternative invasion mechanisms. Nat Methods 10:125-127.