Jan Huisken

Jan Huisken is a Professor at the University of Göttingen, Germany, holding the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship since October 2021. He remains an affiliate of the Morgridge Institute for Research in Madison, Wisconsin, where he served as Director of Morgridge Medical Engineering since 2016. Previously, he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology (2010-2017) and a Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (2005-2009).

His educational background includes:

• PhD in Physics, University of Freiburg (conducted at EMBL-Heidelberg)
• Postdoctoral work at EMBL-Heidelberg (2000-2004)
• Postdoctoral work at UCSF (2004-2005)

Dr. Huisken's research focuses on developing noninvasive biomedical imaging techniques, particularly optical microscopy, to study developmental processes in living organisms. His lab specializes in organogenesis in zebrafish, with emphasis on the cardiovascular system and endoderm. He pioneers quantitative microscopy tools including selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM) and high-speed fluorescence microscopy to capture cellular dynamics during organ formation.

His publication portfolio reveals a dominant trend in advancing light-sheet microscopy for multiscale embryonic imaging, with recurring applications in cardiovascular dynamics, endoderm formation, and vascular growth. This work consistently bridges physics and biology, creating custom microscopes that solve fundamental biological problems through interdisciplinary collaboration.

His notable scientific achievement is:

• Alexander von Humboldt Professorship

Dr. Huisken leads an interdisciplinary laboratory where biologists and physicists jointly develop cutting-edge microscopy instrumentation and immediately apply it to biological discovery. The lab operates across the full experimental spectrum from transgenic model systems and optical engineering to computational image analysis, fostering a unique environment where technological innovation directly drives biological insight.