Wimmer, Ernst, Prof. Dr.

Professor of Developmental Biology

• 1991: Diplom (Biology), Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany
• 1995: Dr. rer. nat., Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen (Germany) and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston (USA)
• 1995-1998: Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Rockefeller University, New York (USA)
• 1998-2003: Assistant Professor and Robert Bosch Foundation "Junior Professor", Department of Genetics, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth (Germany)
• since 2003: Professor of Developmental Biology at the Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, Georg August University, Göttingen (Germany)

Homepage Department/Research Group
http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/sh/49202.html

Major Research Interests

• Phylogenetic Variance and Plasticity of Developmental Processes:
  A key question in evolutionary developmental biology is how diverse animal body plans are specified. To identify the plasticity in developmental processes, we study their conservation and divergence in different arthropod species by transgenesis and functional genomics approaches. This will help us to understand how animal evolution is based on changes in gene regulation governing pattern formation and sex determination processes.
• Smelling Beetles: Stink Glands and Odour Detection the Red Flour Beetle Tribolium castaneum:
  Beetles are prolific producers of repellent and/or toxic compounds. Defensive substances are usually multifunctional: as repellents, toxicants, insecticides, or antimicrobics, they are directed against a large array of potential target organisms or may function for boiling bombardment or as surfactants. We are interested both in the development of these glands as well as their biochemical composition and biological function. The red flour beetle also offers a great system to address olfaction from the odour recognition and discrimination at the periphery to the analysis of the plasticity of the central olfactory pathway.
  
• Applied Developmental Biology: Biotechnological improvements on the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT):
  SIT is a successful genetic pest management strategy to prevent, control, suppress, or even eradicate invasive insect pest species from islands, large agricultural production areas, or even complete continents. SIT is a species-specific and eco-friendly insect birth control measure involving mass production, sterilization, and sustained area-wide release of large quantities of sterilized insects. This leads to unproductive matings, which shrinks the population. Our current biotechnological efforts, which include transposon-based germ line transformation and CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing, improve on transgenic female-specific lethality systems to enable more efficient male-only releases, on reproductive sterility systems to overcome the problem of radiation-reduced fitness, and on transgenic markers to better monitor the efficacy of SIT applications.
  
  ORCID: 0000-0002-2480-2804