Oliver is a post-doctoral fellow in the Schaffer lab at the Department of Biomedical Engineering. His research is supported by the DFG (German Research Foundation) and focuses on multiple aspects of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related neurodegenerative diseases. He aims to combine behavior tests with in vivo multiphoton microscopy to elucidate the mechanisms of reduced blood flow, a currently under-studied feature in disease progression. He is also interested in the link between small-vessel strokes (micro strokes) and its relationship to neurodegenerative diseases such as AD.
Oliver studied at the University of Tübingen and worked during this time in the lab of Detlef Weigel at the Max Planck institute, focusing on flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana. For his Master’s degree he moved to the Salk Institute in La Jolla to Rusty Gage’s lab, where he worked on adult neuronal Stem Cells in the brain.
Oliver obtained his PhD from the ETH Zurich in Switzerland, at the Institute of Cell Biology in the lab of Sebastian Jessberger. Here he was working on adult stem cells within the hippocampal formation and their molecular signature. He further strengthened his background in animal disease models of stroke in the lab of Susanne Wegener at the Neurology Department at the University Hospital in Zürich.
Outside the lab I enjoy every aspect of nature and wildlife.
