Stefan Lichtenthaler, Ph.D.

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


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 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 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.

Lichtenthaler lab webpage: https://www.dzne.de/Lichtenthaler

Funded Research

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