Ibrahim Cissé

Ibrahim Cissé is Director at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, where he heads the Department of Biological Physics. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and previously held positions at MIT and Caltech. His research focuses on developing quantitative live-cell imaging approaches to study weak and transient biomolecular interactions.

Research interests include:

• Single-molecule super-resolution microscopy in live cells
• RNA polymerase II clustering mechanisms
• Biomolecular condensate formation and function
• Gene regulation through protein phase separation

His publications demonstrate consistent focus on transcription regulation, with recent work revealing how biomolecular condensates control gene expression through phase separation mechanisms.

Scientific awards and honors:

• Carnegie Great Immigrant (2022)
• MacArthur Fellowship (2021)
• Vilcek Prize for Biomedical Science (2021)
• APS Fellowship (2021)

Leads an interdisciplinary lab combining physics, chemistry, and biology to develop advanced microscopy techniques for studying gene expression dynamics in living cells.