Cure Alzheimer's Fund Cure Alzheimer's Fund

Stefan Lichtenthaler, Ph.D.

Professor, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and Technische Universität München (TUM), Germany

Dr. Stefan Lichtenthaler studied chemistry and earned his doctoral degree in molecular biology at ZMBH, Heidelberg University’s Center for Molecular Biology. After working as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University (USA) he led a junior research group at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU) Munich, Germany. In 2009, he was appointed tenured group leader at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). Since 2012, he has been a full professor of neuroproteomics at the Technical University Munich (TUM) and DZNE.

Dr. Lichtenthaler uses an interdisciplinary approach to study the function and regulation of secretases in both the healthy and the Alzheimer’s brain, to evaluate the secretases’ therapeutic potential, and to make secretase-targeted drugs safer for clinical trials. More recently, he also started studying microglia biology with a focus on rare genetic risk factors of AD. Stefan Lichtenthaler also pioneered proteomic methods for protease substrate identification in vitro and in vivo.

Dr. Lichtenthaler received several awards, including the Sophie Bernthsen Award, an Emmy-Noether Award, and the Alzheimer Research Award of the Breuer Foundation.

To learn more, visit the Lichtenthaler Lab webpage.

To learn more about Dr. Lichtenthaler, click here.

Related Research:

Cerebrospinal Fluid Neuroinflammatory Signature in Alzheimer´s Disease and Related Proteopathies Mathias Jucker Stefan Lichtenthaler Stephan Kaeser 2022-11-22

Funded Research

These projects were made possible from Cure Alzheimer's Fund support.

Project Description Researchers Funding
Cerebrospinal Fluid Neuroinflammatory Signature in Alzheimer´s Disease and Related Proteopathies 2022, 2023

$361,100

Selected Publications

These published papers resulted from Cure Alzheimer’s Fund support.

Dinkel, L., Hummel, S., Zenatti, V., Malara, M., Tillmann, Y., … Lichtenthaler, S., F., ... Tahirovic, S. Myeloid cell-specific loss of NPC1 in mice recapitulates microgliosis and neurodegeneration in patients with Niemann-Pick type C disease, Science Translational Medicine, December 4, 2024, Read More

Schmidt, A., Hrupka, B., van Bebber, F., Sunil Kumar, S., Feng, X., Tschirner, S. K., Aßfalg, M., Müller, S. A., Hilger, L. S., Hofmann, L. I., Pigoni, M., Jocher, G., Voytyuk, I., Self, E. L., Ito, M., Hyakkoku, K., Yoshimura, A., Horiguchi, N., Feederle, R., De Strooper, B., … Lichtenthaler, S. F. The Alzheimer’s disease-linked protease BACE2 cleaves VEGFR3 and modulates its signaling, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, June 18, 2024, Read More

Parhizkar, S., Arzberger, T., Brendel, M., Kleinberger, G., Deussing, M., Focke, C., Nuscher, B., Xiong, M., Ghasemigharagoz, A., Katzmarski, N., Krasemann, S., Lichtenthaler, S. F., Müller, S. A., Colombo, A., Monasor, L. S., Tahirovic, S., Herms, J., Willem, M., Pettkus, N., Butovsky, O., Bartenstein, P., Edbauer, D., Rominger, A., Erturk, A., Grathwohl, S. A., Neher, J. J., Holtzman, D., Meyer-Leuhmann, M., & Haass, C. Loss of TREM2 function increases amyloid seeding but reduces plaque-associated ApoE, Nature Neuroscience, February 1, 2019, Read More

Schlepckow, K., Kleinberger, G., Fukumori, A., Feederle, R., Lichtenthaler, S. F., Steiner, H., & Haass, C. An Alzheimer-associated TREM2 variant occurs at the ADAM cleavage site and affects shedding and phagocytic function., EMBO Molecular Medicine, August 30, 2017, Read More

Eninger, T., Müller, S. A., Bacioglu, M., Schweighauser, M., Lambert, M., Maia, L. F., Neher, J. J., Hornfeck, S. M., Obermüller, U., Kleinberger, G., Haass, C., Kahle, P. J., Staufenbiel, M., Ping, L., Duong, D. M., Levey, A. I., Seyfried, N. T., Lichtenthaler, S. F., Jucker, M., & Kaeser, S. A. Signatures of glial activity can be detected in the CSF proteome, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, June 6, 2022, Read More

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