Jochen Guck

Prof. Jochen Guck is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and holds the Chair of Biological Optomechanics at Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. His research focuses on the physical properties of cells and tissues, combining photonics and biophysical tools to bridge gaps between cellular mechanics and medical applications.

Education: PhD in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin (2001), followed by roles at Leipzig University, Cambridge University, and TU Dresden before his current positions. He leads the Biological Optomechanics Division, developing techniques like Deformability Cytometry (DC), Optical Diffraction Tomography (ODT), and Brillouin Microscopy to study cell mechanics and density distributions.

Research emphasizes translating physical measurements into clinical diagnostics (e.g., cancer, spinal cord regeneration) and has produced over 145 publications and 6 patents. Awards include the Cozzarelli Award (2008), Paterson Medal (2011), and Humboldt Professorship (2012). Collaborations span medical and engineering fields, with projects like the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin.

His lab investigates cell density heterogeneity, spinal cord regeneration in zebrafish, and biomechanical markers for diseases like Covid-19 and depression. Key methods include ODT for 3D mass density mapping and RT-DC for high-throughput cell analysis.