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Prof. Dr. Dagmar Wachten

Member, Steering-Committee Member

Institute of Innate Immunity

Venusberg - Campus 1 53127 Bonn

dwachten@uni-bonn.de

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We aim to understand how cilia work and what their function is. Cilia are subcellular compartments that protrude from the surface of almost every mammalian cell. Cilia can be grouped into two major classes: a) primary cilia, which are immotile and b) motile cilia, which are also called flagella. A prominent example for the latter are sperm flagella. Ciliary dysfunction leads to severe diseases commonly referred to as ciliopathies. They comprise e.g. polycystic kidney disease, obesity, blindness, and infertility. However, the signaling pathways controlling ciliary function are ill-defined. To study ciliary signaling with high spatial and temporal precision, we combine optogenetics and genetically-encoded biosensors with high-resolution microscopy, mouse genetics, and biochemistry. This multidisciplinary approach allows not only to investigate ciliary signaling, but can be applied to any subcellular compartment to study its function with spatial and temporal resolution.

Dagmar Wachten

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Recent publications

  • Isolation and Flow Cytometry Analysis of Macrophages from White Adipose Tissue.

    Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)

    Authors: Dalila Juliana Silva Ribeiro, Seniz Yüksel, Andreas Dolf, Dagmar Wachten

  • Cylicins are a structural component of the sperm calyx being indispensable for male fertility in mice and human.

    eLife

    Authors: Simon Schneider, Andjela Kovacevic, Michelle Mayer, Ann-Kristin Dicke, Lena Arévalo, Sophie A Koser, Jan N Hansen, Samuel Young, Christoph Brenker, Sabine Kliesch, Dagmar Wachten, Gregor Kirfel, Timo Struenker, Frank Tüttelmann, Hubert Schorle

  • Emerging principles of primary cilia dynamics in controlling tissue organization and function.

    The EMBO journal

    Authors: Jay Gopalakrishnan, Kerstin Feistel, Benjamin M Friedrich, Anne Grapin-Botton, Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi, Elvira Mass, David U Mick, Roman-Ulrich Müller, Helen May-Simera, Bernhard Schermer, Miriam Schmidts, Peter Walentek, Dagmar Wachten

All publications by Prof. Dr. Dagmar Wachten