Making a blind person see again - is that possible? With the methods of optogenetics, we at least have a chance! Optogenetics is a technology that can be used to control the activity of cells - including nerve cells in the brain - by using light. Prof. Dr. Peter Hegemann from the Humboldt University in Berlin is one of its co-founders.
In this video, Peter Hegemann and Alina Pushkarev report on their research. Both are enthusiastic natural scientists. Peter Hegemann is a member of the two clusters of excellence UniSysCat and NeuroCure in Berlin and thus connects biophysics with neuroscience with his research in the field of optogenetics.
Prof. Dr. Peter Hegemann is a biophysicist and the head of the "Experimental Biophysics" research group at Humboldt University in Berlin. He is one of the discoverers of channelrhodopsins, a family of light-activated ion channels, with whose discovery he co-founded the field of optogenetics. www.biologie.hu-berlin.de/de/...
Dr. Alina Pushkarev is a marine microbiologist. At the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, she discovered heliorhodopsin, a new family of light-responsive proteins. She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Peter Hegemann's lab.
In Berlin, optobiology will be developed into an important field of research in the coming years: A new building is being constructed here, a research building for optobiology - a center of excellence for photobiology, optical neurobiology with optogenetics and microscopy. From 2028 onwards, scientists from different disciplines will work together here on technologies that aim to make the interaction of light and organisms usable for medicine.