Ulrich Wullner

Ullrich Wüllner

Prof. Dr. med. Ullrich Wüllner obtained a doctorate in medicine at the medial faculty Göttingen. Working at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine, was chosen as a fellow of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung), supported by a DFG grant trained as a reseach associate in neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital (Harvard Medical School, Boston) and completed his specialist training at the Department of Neurology of Univ. Tübingen, where he was received the “venia legendi” in 1998 with a thesis on apoptotic cell death in neurodegenerative diseases.

In Boston, he worked on the neurochemical anatomy of the basal ganglia, glutamate receptors and the role of excitatory neurotransmission in Parkinson’s disease (PD). With Dr. Ole Isacson he positron emission tomography (PET) and high-field MRI techniques in primate models of PD PMID: 1515582, on molecular mechanisms of neuronal cell death (apoptosis, autophagy and necrosis in in vivo and in vitro models and on post-mortem tissue) and together with colleagues in chemistry, pharmacy and nuclear medicine, in particular Drs. Schmaljohann and Gündisch – he developed two PET tracers (PMID: 15959851, PMID: 16631078).

In Bonn, he set up a research laboratory at the Department of Neurology in 1998 and continued the investigation of the molecular, cellular and pharmacological aspects of the pathogenesis of ataxias (SCA) and PD. In the Competence Network Parkinson e. V. the first German Parkinson gene bank was established in close cooperation with the German Parkinson (patient) Association (dPV) PMID: 17941852. Various projects in national and international research collaborations followed (eg DFG research group “SCA3” (FOR 427), BMBF Human Genome Project, Bonn (01GS0115) Subproject 9, BMBF project “Competence Network Parkinson” (01GI0401), EU Project “EuroSCA “(LSHM-CT-2004-503304), BMBF project” Brain Imaging Center West “(01GO0515), BMBF project” EPI-PD “(01KU1403D), EU project” Aetionomy “(FP7 / IMI / 115568) and several studies of drugs in phases 2 or 3: ECSPD98, E2007-E044-20, 248,595 proud phase IV, SP 873, CENA713DDE15, CENA713B2315, SP 882, S187.3.004, P07-02, BF2.649, AX200–101). He is currently head of the Department of Movement Disorders and comm. Director and Chair of the Clinic for Neurodegeneration at the Department of Neurology, Prof. of the Medical Faculty of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University Bonn and group leader at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE, Biomarker Parkinson). Recent projects focused on epigenetics PMID: 27120258 and the microbiome PMID: 28449715 in PD. In a translational clinical project, he leads a team of neurologists, neurosurgeons and radiologists  using a system for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MR) -focused focused ultrasound (MRgFUS), a newly developed procedure for interventional neuromodulation for targeted and minimally invasive treatment of tremor PMID: 30406441.