Bernd H. Zinselmeyer, PhD

Division

• Anatomic & Molecular Pathology

Lab Website

• Zinselmeyer Lab

Research Interests

My scientific education is broad and interdisciplinary, spanning systematic botany, mycology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and numerous cellular biology techniques. For example, I have acquired applied skills in chemical and physiochemical techniques such as structural NMR and photon-correlation spectroscopy and have used these skills to design, synthesize and characterize novel compounds for Gene delivery (Patent Publication Number: WO 03/033027 A31980; and Zinselmeyer et. al., 2002, Pharmaceutical Research 19: 960-967, cited over 300 times). Earning my PhD in pharmaceutical science has inspired me to focus on translational science, with an emphasis on research that has relevance to clinical medicine. The main focus of my work over the past 10 years has been intravital multi-photon imaging of cells of the immune system and the CNS. This started when I was hired in 2003 by Prof. Paul Garside as an Imaging expert for a new project in his lab, “Revealing the cellular and molecular interactions underlying the development of tolerance or immunity in real time in vivo”. Within the scope of this project, in collaboration with John Dempster and David Wokosin, I built the first 2-photon microscope in Europe capable of observing dynamics of leucocytes. In collaboration with Mike Cahalan, Ian Parker and Mark Miller (at UCI, Irvine), this project resulted in a landmark publication (Zinselmeyer et. al. 2005, J Exp Med 201:1815-23, cited over 130 times). For the first time, we were able to characterize dynamic differences of naïve T-cells during induction of tolerance versus priming. During my postdoctoral time in Dr. Mark Miller’s lab at Washington University we set up the first dual-laser 2-photon (2P) microscope in the world dedicated to visualize the immune system. In collaboration with Drs. Daniel Kreisel and Wenjun Li, we were able for the first time to image leucocyte dynamics in the living mouse lung. The results of this work are published in PNAS, where I have first author equal contribution (Kreisel et. al. 2010, PNAS 107:18073-18078, cited over 140 times).