Prof Josef Penninger

Scientific Director - Scientific Management

Josef Penninger was born on 5 September 1964 in Gurten, Oberösterreich. After attending medical school in Innsbruck, he started his scientific career at the University of Toronto, Canada. In 2002, he was the founding director of the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology IMBA – a research institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. In 2018, he returned to Canada as a Canada 150 Chair and took over the Life Sciences Institute at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Starting from 1 July 2023, he has been appointed as Scientific Director of the HZI in Braunschweig. In 2024, he completed his PhD in Medical Science at Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan.

Since 1995 Josef Penninger has been receiving multiple competitive research grants in the EU and North America, among those a C150 Canada Research Chair in Functional Genetics, an Innovator Award from the US, an EU Excellence Grant, as well as an ERC Advanced Grant.

Josef Penninger has earned a long list of awards and honorary awards. Among those are the Ernst-Jung-Price for Medicine, the Descartes-Price (highest European award) and the Wittgenstein-Price, also referred to as the “Austrian Nobel Price”. In 2015 he placed 11th in the ranking of the most influential thought leaders in German-speaking countries. Additionally Penninger has been given an Honorary Professor title of the Chinese University of Qingdao and is a recipient of the Austrian Cross of Merit. He is regularly distinguished for his publications and citation rates, e.g. as Highly-cited Researcher by Clarivate, Top-Cited Scholar by Scilit and most-cited developmental biologist in the German-speaking countries, and he was among the Top 10 of the most cited scientists worldwide twice.

Publications at HZI

Onji M., Sigl V., Lendl T., Novatchkova M., Ullate-Agote A., Andersson-Rolf A., Kozieradzki I., Koglgruber R., Pai T.P., Lichtscheidl D., Nayak K., Zilbauer M., Carranza Garcia N.A., Sievers L.K., Falk-Paulsen M., Cronin S.J.F., Hagelkruys A., Sawa S., Osborne L.C., Rosenstiel P., Pasparakis M., Ruland J., Takayanagi H., Clevers H., ... , Koo B.K., Penninger J.M. (2025)

RANK drives structured intestinal epithelial expansion during pregnancy

Nature, 637 (8044)

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08284-1 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Helm J., Mereiter S., Oliveira T., Gattinger A., Markovitz D.M., Penninger J.M., ... , Altmann F., Stadlmann J. (2024)

Non-targeted N-glycome profiling reveals multiple layers of organ-specific diversity in mice

Nature Communications, 15 (1)

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54134-z HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Pham V.C., Rödel C.J., Valentino M., Malinverno M., Paolini A., Münch J., Pasquier C., Onyeogaziri F.C., Lazovic B., Girard R., Koskimäki J., Hußmann M., Keith B., Jachimowicz D., Kohl F., Hagelkruys A., Penninger J.M., Schulte-Merker S., Awad I.A., Hicks R., Magnusson P.U., Faurobert E., ... , Pagani M., Abdelilah-Seyfried S. (2024)

Epigenetic regulation by polycomb repressive complex 1 promotes cerebral cavernous malformations

EMBO Mol.Med., 16 (11)

DOI: 10.1038/s44321-024-00152-9 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Schuetz T., Dolejsi T., Beck E., Fugger F., Bild A., Duin M.T., Gavranovic-Novakovic J., Hilbold E., Hoffmann T., Zuber J., Bauer A., Ruschitzka F., BÃ¤r C., ... , Penninger J.M., Haubner B.J. (2024)

Murine neonatal cardiac regeneration depends on Insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor signaling

Sci.Rep., 14 (1)

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-72783-4 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Werschler N., Quintard C., Nguyen S., Penninger J. (2024)

Engineering next generation vascularized organoids

Atherosclerosis

DOI: 10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2024.118529 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Starkl P., Jonsson G., Artner T., Turnes B.L., Gail L.M., Oliveira T., Jain A., Serhan N., Stejskal K., Lakovits K., Hladik A., An M., Channon K.M., Kim H., Köcher T., Weninger W., Stary G., Knapp S., Klang V., Gaudenzio N., Woolf C.J., Tikoo S., Jain R., ... , Penninger J.M., Cronin S.J.F. (2024)

Mast cell-derived BH4 and serotonin are critical mediators of postoperative pain

Science Immunology, 9 (98)

DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.adh0545 PubMed

Ota A., Iguchi T., Nitta S., Muro R., Mino N., Tsukasaki M., Penninger J.M., ... , Nitta T., Takayanagi H. (2024)

Synchronized development of thymic eosinophils and thymocytes

Int.Immunol.

DOI: 10.1093/intimm/dxae037 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Monteil V.M., Wright S.C., Dyczynski M., Kellner M.J., Appelberg S., Platzer S.W., Ibrahim A., Kwon H., Pittarokoilis I., Mirandola M., Michlits G., Devignot S., Elder E., Abdurahman S., Bereczky S., Bagci B., Youhanna S., Aastrup T., Lauschke V.M., Salata C., Elaldi N., Weber F., Monserrat N., Hawman D.W., Feldmann H., Horn M., ... , Penninger J.M., Mirazimi A. (2024)

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus uses LDLR to bind and enter host cells

Nat.Microbiol.

DOI: 10.1038/s41564-024-01672-3 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Frenz-Wiessner S., Fairley S.D., Buser M., Goek I., Salewskij K., Jonsson G., Illig D., Zu Putlitz B., Petersheim D., Li Y., Chen P.H., Kalauz M., Conca R., Sterr M., Geuder J., Mizoguchi Y., Megens R.T.A., Linder M.I., Kotlarz D., Rudelius M., Penninger J.M., ... , Marr C., Klein C. (2024)

Generation of complex bone marrow organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells

Nat.Methods

DOI: 10.1038/s41592-024-02172-2 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Quintard C., Tubbs E., Jonsson G., Jiao J., Wang J., Werschler N., Laporte C., Pitaval A., Bah T.S., Pomeranz G., Bissardon C., Kaal J., Leopoldi A., Long D.A., Blandin P., Achard J.L., Battail C., Hagelkruys A., Navarro F., Fouillet Y., ... , Penninger J.M., Gidrol X. (2024)

A microfluidic platform integrating functional vascularized organoids-on-chip

Nat.Commun., 15 (1)

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45710-4 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Cikes D., Leutner M., Cronin S.J.F., Novatchkova M., Pfleger L., Klepochova R., Lair B., Lac M., Bergoglio C., Viguerie N., Dürnberger G., Roitinger E., Grivej M., Rullman E., Gustafsson T., Hagelkruys A., Tavernier G., Bourlier V., Knauf C., Krebs M., Kautzky-Willer A., Moro C., Krssak M., ... , Orthofer M., Penninger J.M. (2024)

Gpcpd1-GPC metabolic pathway is dysfunctional in aging and its deficiency severely perturbs glucose metabolism

Nature Aging, 4 (1)

DOI: 10.1038/s43587-023-00551-6 PubMed

Keshmiri H., Cikes D., Samalova M., Schindler L., Appel L.M., Urbanek M., Yudushkin I., Slade D., Weninger W.J., Peaucelle A., ... , Penninger J., Elsayad K. (2024)

Brillouin light scattering anisotropy microscopy for imaging the viscoelastic anisotropy in living cells

Nature Photonics

DOI: 10.1038/s41566-023-01368-w

Monteil V., Kwon H., John L., Salata C., Jonsson G., Vorrink S.U., Appelberg S., Youhanna S., Dyczynski M., Leopoldi A., Leeb N., Volz J., Hagelkruys A., Kellner M.J., Devignot S., Michlits G., Foong-Sobis M., Weber F., Lauschke V.M., Horn M., Feldmann H., Elling U., ... , Penninger J.M., Mirazimi A. (2023)

Identification of CCZ1 as an essential lysosomal trafficking regulator in Marburg and Ebola virus infections

Nat.Commun., 14 (1)

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42526-6 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Turgu B., El-Naggar A., Kogler M., Tortola L., Zhang H.F., Hassan M., Lizardo M.M., Kung S.H.Y., Lam W., ... , Penninger J.M., Sorensen P.H. (2023)

The HACE1 E3 ligase mediates RAC1-dependent control of mTOR signaling complexes

EMBO Rep.

DOI: 10.15252/embr.202356815 HZI-Repositorium PubMed

Andritschke D., Dilling S., Emmenlauer M., Welz T., Schmich F., Misselwitz B., Ramo P., Rottner K., Kerkhoff E., Wada T., Penninger J.M., Beerenwinkel N., Horvath P., ... , Dehio C., Hardt W.D. (2016)

A Genome-Wide siRNA Screen Implicates Spire1/2 in SipA-Driven Salmonella Typhimurium Host Cell Invasion

PLoS ONE, 11 (9)

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0161965 HZI-Repositorium

HZI Podcast

How Josef Penninger wants to lead the HZI into the Champions League and what we can learn from viruses and bacteria.

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