– Justus Liebig University Giessen –
Research Focus Weissmann
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Norbert Weissmann

Professorship "Molecular Mechanisms of Emphysema, Hypoxia and Lung Aging"

Norbert Weissmann's research focuses on lung diseases, particularly pulmonary hypertension (PH) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). His work investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive lung tissue damage and blood vessel remodeling in these diseases, with a specific focus on oxidative stress and hypoxia (low oxygen levels) as major contributing factors.

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Norbert Weissmann
Justus Liebig University Giessen
Professorship for Molecular Mechanisms of Emphysema, Hypoxia and Lung Aging
Speaker of CRC 1213 ”Pulmonary Hypertension and Cor Pulmonale”

Specific research areas:

  • Identification of novel key-proteins involved in chronic hypoxia-induced pulmonary vascular remodeling and assessing their therapeutic relevance
  • Development of therapeutic strategies for interference with redox-signaling for the treatment of COPD/COPD-PH
  • Unraveling the role of redox-signaling in lung epithelium and endothelium in inflammation and pulmonary vascular remodeling in COPD
  • Role of macrophages in pulmonary vascular remodeling underlying COPD

Specific methodology:

  1. Disease modeling
    Tobacco smoke-induced COPD/COPD-PH, chronic hypoxia-induced PH, e-cigarette-induced COPD, precision cut lung slices (PCLS), investigations of isolated organ models, AAV approaches of gene silencing/overexpression, organoids, primary cell isolation (SMC, EC, FB, macrophages, AT2), in vitro exposure system (hypoxia, tobacco smoke/e-cigarette smoke)
  2. Phenotyping
    Hemodynamics, echocardiography, lung function testing, electrophysiology (patch clamp, two electrode voltage clamp), Raman spectroscopy, wire myography, electron spin resonance (ESR; measurement/detection of reactive oxygen species), imaging (EVOS Fluorescent Cell Imaging System, Incucyte Live-Cell Imaging and Analysis, confocal microscopy, Calcium imaging), laser microdissection (LMD)
  3. Analysis
    General and advanced molecular biology techniques (conventional Western blotting and automated capillary-based Western blot analysis (Jess), quantitative real-time PCR, Histology (paraffin/cryo; immunohistochemistry/immunofluorescence; tissue/cells)