Biography
Robert received a BSc in Cell Biology from the University of Osnabrück in 2009 and MSc and PhD degrees in Biophysics from Humboldt University Berlin in 2011 and 2016.
During his time in Berlin, Robert studied how receptor proteins convert environmental cues into biological function. He harnessed these insights to engineer optogenetic tools that allow precise control of biological functions via light to study their role in the greater context of cells and organisms.
As a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Robert developed methods to see molecular signals throughout the mammalian brain using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound and optical imaging.
His work as group leader combines both research directions by developing and applying technologies for manipulation and visualization of molecular signaling to resolve the molecular foundations of organismal physiology and disease states.
Robert received a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, fellowships from the German Research foundation (DFG) and Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF), and the Humboldt Prize from HU Berlin.
Key Publications
- Ohlendorf R, Wisniowska A, Desai M, Barandov A, Slusarczyk AL, Li N, Jasanoff A. (2020) Target-responsive vasoactive probes for ultrasensitive molecular imaging. Nature Communications.
- Ohlendorf R, Schumacher CH, Richter F, Möglich A. (2016) Library-Aided Probing of Linker Determinants in Hybrid Photoreceptors. ACS Synthetic Biology 5(10), 1117–1126
- Ohlendorf R, Vidavski RR, Eldar A, Moffat K, Möglich A. (2012) From Dusk Till Dawn: One- Plasmid Systems for Light-Regulated Gene Expression. Journal of Molecular Biology (416), 534-542