Members' Directory

Biography: After leaving EMBL I worked at UCLA for 3 years and took an additional training program at Woods Hole Cell Physiology Course. In 1993 I left UCLA to take a faculty position in the Department of Medicine at Northwestern Medical School. In 1996 I moved to Indiana University Medical School where I am a faculty in the Division of Nephrology. We have been working to extend the utility of light microscopy methods by using multiphoton imaging to image into live animals.

Biography: 1990-1993: Postdoctoral fellow with Marc Kirschner, University of California at San Franciscio, USA
1993-1994: Postdoctoral fellow with Marc Kirschner, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
1994-2001: START-Fellow of the Swiss National Sciences Foundation & Principal Investigator, Institute of Cell Biology, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2001-2007: Assistant Professor for Therapeutics Technologies, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2007-2009: Principal Investigator, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2009-present: Professor of Molecular Pathophysiology, LMU Munich, Germany

The focus of research in the Brändli laboratory is on studying development and cellular differentiation of the vertebrate kidney and the vasculature system with the aim of translating our findings into the development of novel therapeutic strategies to treat renal and vascular diseases. We use Xenopus embryos and tadpoles as our primary animal model, since they are convenient to carry out gain- and loss-of-function studies. In addition, we employ organ cultures and mammalian cell lines as alternative experimental systems. Finally, we collaborate with external partners to extent our basic experimental findings to mammalian model systems and to human biology and pathology. In the past years, the laboratory has discovered novel regulators of angiogenesis, identified key genes determining cell fate in the developing kidney, and elucidated the segmental organization of the nephrons of the Xenopus kidney. Most recently, we have developed an in vivo chemical screening methodology in Xenopus tadpoles to identify novel small-molecule regulators of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis.

Biography: 1980-81 Department of Biology, University of Milano
1981 Department of Biological Structure, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
1981-1985 Center for the Study of Cellular Infrastructure, CNR, Univ. of Milano
1985-1988 Post-doc, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany
1988-1992 Post-doc, Department of Physiology and Howard Hughes Medical Inst., Univ. California San Francisco, USA
1992-present: Group Leader at DIBIT, Scientific Institute H.S.Raffaele, Milano, Italy
From 1992: Professor in charge of Cell Biology, Postgraduate School in Applied Genetics, University of Milano.
From 2001: Professor in charge of Biochemistry, Medical School, UHSR, Milano.

Biography: 1972 - 1976 Hebelschule, Grenzach-Wyhlen, Germany
1976 - 1985 Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium, Grenzach-Wyhlen, Germany
1986 - 1990 Studies in Biology II, University of Basel, Switzerland
1991 - 1995 Predoctoral-/Postdoctoral Fellow (1994-1995)EMBL, Heidelberg
1995 - 1998 Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York
1998 - 2002 Research Group Leader, Biozentrum, University of Basel
2006 - 2012 Studies in Medicine, University of Basel, Switzerland