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Prof. Dr. Gaia Tavosanis

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Prof. Dr. Gaia Tavosanis

Kandidatin "Schatzmeisterin"

RWTH Aachen
Institut für Entwicklungsbiologie
Worringerweg 3
52074 Aachen

Tel.: (+49) 0221 80 20870

E-Mail: gaia.tavosanis@devbiol.rwth-aachen.de

Lab Website: https://www.devbiol.rwth-aachen.de/prof-dr-gaia-tavosanis/
RWTH Webpage: https://www.devbio.rwth-aachen.de/cms/~barnkq/devbio/?lidx=1
 

Curriculum Vitae

  
Date and place of birth 7th May 1970, Ivrea, Italy
Family status married, three children
 

Scientific education

1994 Graduation in Biology at the University of Pisa, Italy
1999 Dr rer nat University of Heidelberg (PhD EMBL), Germany
2013 Habilitation in Neurobiology at LMU, Munich


Academic Career

1995-1999 PhD student in the laboratory of Dr. C. Gonzalez, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany (EMBL PhD Fellowship)
1999 Post-doc in the laboratory of Dr. C. Gonzalez (EMBL- Cell Biology Postdoctoral Fellowship)
2000-2002 Post-doc in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Yuh-Nung Jan, UCSF, San Francisco, CA, USA (DFG Postdoctoral Grant)
2003-2011 Junior Group Leader at the MPI of Neurobiology, Munich, Germany
2011-2016 Research Group Leader (W2 level) at the DZNE, Bonn, Germany
2017-2022 Research Group Leader (W3 level) at the DZNE, Bonn
2017-2022 Full Professor of Neurogenetics (W3) at the University of Bonn
2022-present Full Professor, Chair of Developmental Biology (W3) at the RWTH Aachen


Research focus

The Tavosanis group investigates how architectural constrains in the nervous system define the processing of information- from the cellular to the circuit level. 
They combine high-resolution microscopy with cutting-edge Drosophila genetics to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neuronal differentiation and circuit assembly during development. Concentrating on the adult mushroom body, they additionally investigate how the functional organization of this circuit defines the representations of olfactory information in this important center for associative learning. 

 

Awards/Services for the Scientific Community

2027 Co- organizer EMBO Workshop ”Cell Biology of the Nervous System”, Fodele Beach, Crete,May 2027 (EMBO has awarded funding to this meeting)
2027 Scientific Committee European Drosophila Research Conference, Bonn, Germany
2026 Scientific Committee Neurofly Meeting, Cologne, Germany
2025 Main organizer EMBO Workshop ”Cell Biology of the Nervous System”, Fodele Beach, Crete 
2025 Co-Organizer of a Symposium on Dendrites at the Bernstein conference, Frankfurt Germany
2022-2026 Steering Board of iBeahve (NRW Network grant)
2024 Keynote speaker Neurofly, Birmingham, UK
2023 Co-organizer Bonn Brain 3- International conference, Bonn August 7-9
2023 Main organizer EMBO Workshop ”Cell Biology of the Nervous System: Resilience and Vulnerability”, Fodele Beach, Crete
2021-2022 Vice-coordinator of the Masters in Neuroscience, University of Bonn
2021 Initiator and organizer (with Prof. M. Nawrot) of the international meeting: “The Mushroom Body meeting” (virtual edition during the pandemic)
2019-2022 Speaker of Topic 1” Brain Function” for DZNE, Germany (DZNE includes 10 research centres in Germany and research is organized in 5 major topics)
2019-2022 Speaker of Fundamental Research at the DZNE Bonn
2019-2022 Vice- Speaker of BIGS Neuroscience, University of Bonn
2019-2021 PI representative at the DZNE Bonn site
2015 Offered a full professorship in Animal Physiology, University of Marburg (declined)

Selected original publications

  • Chan ICW, Kalle Kossio FY, Tavosanis G. (2026) Biased connectivity shapes food odor categorization in the Drosophila mushroom body. Cell Reports 45(10):117911. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117911
  • Ziegler AB*, Wesselmann C, Beckschäfer K, Wulf A-L, Dhiman N, Soba P, Thiele C, Bauer R, Tavosanis G.* (2025) Lipid Disbalance Affects Neuronal Dendrite Growth and Maintenance in a Human Ceramide Synthase Disease Model. PLoS Genetics PLoS Genet. 2025 Sep 25;21(9):e1011880. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1011880. 
  • Zhang Y.*,  Sung H.-H. *, Ziegler A.B.*§, Wu Y.-C. *, Viais R., Sánchez-Huertas C., Agrican F.-G., Cheng Y.-J., Mouri K., Uemura T., Lüders J., Chien C.-T.§ and Tavosanis G. (2024)
  • Augmin complex activity fine-tunes dendrite morphology through non-centrosomal microtubule nucleation in vivo. Journal of Cell Science 137(9):jcs261512. doi: 10.1242/jcs.261512. (*shared  first and § corresponding authorship). 
  • Richard M., Doubková K., Nitta Y., Kawai H., Sugie A.*, Tavosanis G.* (2022) A quantitative model of sporadic axonal degeneration in the Drosophila visual system. Journal of Neuroscience 42(24):4937-4952. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2115-21.2022.
  • Stürner T., Ferreira Castro A., Philipps M., Cuntz H.* and Tavosanis G.* (2022) The branching code: a model of actin-driven dendrite arborisation. Cell Reports 39(4):110746. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2022.110746.
  • Prisco L., Deimel S.H., Yeliseyeva H., Fiala A. and Tavosanis G. (2021) The anterior paired lateral neuron normalizes odour-evoked activity in the Drosophila mushroom body calyx.  eLife 10:e74172 doi: 10.7554/eLife.74172
  • Baltruschat L, Prisco L, Ranft P, Lauritzen JS, Fiala A, Bock DD, Tavosanis G (2021) Circuit reorganization in the Drosophila mushroom body calyx accompanies memory consolidation. Cell Reports 34 (11): 108871 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2021.108871
  • Ferreira Castro* A, Baltruschat L, Stürner T, Bahrami A, Jedlicka P, Tavosanis* G, Cuntz* H. (2020) Achieving functional neuronal dendrite structure through sequential stochastic growth and retraction. eLife Nov 26;9:e60920. doi: 10.7554/eLife.60920 (*shared corresponding authorship).
  • Marchetti G and Tavosanis G. (2019) Modulators of Hormonal Response Regulate Temporal Fate Specification in the Drosophila Brain. PLoS Genet. 15(12):e1008491.
  • Stürner T, Tatarnikova A, Mueller J, Schaffran B, Cuntz H, Zhang Y, Nemethova M, Bogdan S, Small V, Tavosanis G. (2019) Transient localization of the Arp2/3 complex initiates neuronal dendrite branching in vivo. Development 146 (7): dev171397.
  • Ziegler AB, Thiele C, Tenedini F, Richard M, Leyendecker P, Hoermann A, Soba P and Tavosanis G. (2017) Cell-Autonomous Control of Neuronal Dendrite Expansion via the Fatty Acid Synthesis Regulator SREBP. Cell Rep. 21(12):3346-3353 doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.11.069
  • Marchetti G and Tavosanis G. (2017) Steroid Hormone Ecdysone Signaling Specifies Mushroom Body Neuron Sequential Fate via Chinmo. Curr Biol. 27(19):3017-3024.
  • Sugie A, Hakeda-Suzuki S, Suzuki E, Silies M, Shimozono M, Mohl C, Suzuki T and Tavosanis G (2015) Molecular Remodeling of the Presynaptic Active Zone of Drosophila Photoreceptors via Activity-Dependent Feedback. Neuron 86(3):711-25