Biosketch

Winfried Denk is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, but is in the process of moving as a Director to the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried near Munich. He is known particularly for the invention of two-photon microscopy and for pioneering its application in Neuroscience. Denk was born in Munich, Germany in 1957 and grew up near Munich. Denk graduated from the ETH Zurich with a diplom in Physics and obtained a PhD in Physics from Cornell University in 1989. He was a Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Labs before he moved to Heidelberg. Denk also teaches in the department of Physics at the University of Heidelberg.

Research Interests

Winfried Denk main interest is the development of imaging methods useful in neuroscience. He has also studied the direction selectivity circuitry in the mammalian retina using the 2-photon microscope an, more recently the serial block-face electron microscope. Currently he is trying to reconstruct the complete cellular connectome of an entire mouse brain.

Membership Type

International Member

Election Year

2013

Primary Section

Section 28: Systems Neuroscience

Secondary Section

Section 24: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience