Henning Ulrich - candidate for Biological Councilor

Henning Ulrich studied biology at the Universities of Hamburg and Kiel, Germany, and graduated in 1991. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in 1995 from the University of Hamburg (Centre for Molecular Neurobiology,Advisor H. Chica Schaller; thesis: Pathway of the neuropeptide head-activator induced signal transduction). His post-doctoral training followed at the same Institute with H.C. Schaller (1995-96), then at Cornell University with George P. Hess (1996-99) and finally at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, with Walter Colli (1999-2001). He was supported by fellowships awarded from the American Heart Association and the German and Brazilian funding agencies DAAD and FAPESP.

Henning is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is head of the Laboratory of Neuroscience composed of several post-doctoral, graduate and undergraduate students. He regularly gives classes for graduate and undergraduate students, has taught Cytometry at the European Summer school and coordinates the yearly held Winter school in his Department.

Henning Ulrich is a specialist in calcium-imaging and confocal microscopy and has used these techniques since his Ph.D. thesis research in the early nineties. At this time he learnt imaging and flow cytometry from Dr. Attila Tárnok (currently Editor-in-Chief of Cytometry Part A) who headed the cell-sorting group at the Centre for Molecular Neurobiology, Hamburg. Since then, Henning has continuously made use of imaging and flow cytometry in his research projects. Moreover, he uses these exciting techniques for measurement of intracellular calcium and changes in membrane potential in order to obtain high-throughput screening alternatives to time-consuming patch-clamp analysis of single cells.

He has published 39 peer-reviewed manuscripts with many involving imaging and flow cytometry techniques. He has edited one book and is author of six book chapters which include contributions to “Current Protocols in Cytometry” and “Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting”. He has delivered more than 70 invited seminars at Conferences and American and European Universities. He has been awarded with a fellowship for productivity in science by the Foundation CNPq of the Brazilian government.

Contributions to the Field of Cytometry

Henning is Associate Editor of Cytometry A and also regularly acts as reviewer for the journal, thereby ensuring high quality publications and advising authors how they can improve their manuscripts. He is encouraging authors from the area of Cytometry as well as from interdisciplinary areas to publish in Cytometry A. His activity in promoting the ISAC society has recently resulted in the recruitment of Brazilian students as new members. He trains Brazilian students in cytometry techniques.

Contributions which Henning Ulrich would make as Biological Councilor

Aim 1:

Henning is promoting Cytometry in countries which are yet underrepresented in view of the number of ISAC members and attraction of students and young scientists to the Society. Henning’s election will increase these activities.

Brazil has a strong potential of well-trained young scientists who increasingly make use of Cytometry techniques in their research; i.e. many institutions are equipped with flow cytometers and confocal microscopes. However, in contrast to many excellent studies developed and also published in the area of Cytometry, only a few Brazilian scientists are in fact members of the ISAC community. Without any doubts, the future of ISAC lies in attracting new members from underrepresented countries, and efforts should be made to make students from these countries to join the society. In view of that, Henning’s purpose is to actively recruit a considerable number of new members in Brazil, as well as other in other Latin American countries. This goal can easily be reached by offering workshops on Cytometry and events promoted by ISAC with participation of invited guests from abroad as well as of researchers from Latin American Countries. Besides establishing new collaborative projects with Latin American researchers, trainees and students will be encouraged to perform research in Cytometry.

Aim 2:

The demonstration of ISAC commitment for Latin American countries and promotion of student and scientist exchange. Henning’s election will strengthen already existing activities.

Without any doubts, Henning’s election as a Brazilian and Latin American representative in the ISAC council would demonstrate a commitment of the ISAC for researchers of South and Central America. Summer and Winter Schools and conferences sponsored by ISAC and taught by well-known Brazilian and foreign scientists as well as transcontinental student exchange of scientists and students shall increase the number of trained cytometrists in South America.

Aim 3:

Henning will contribute to make ISAC attractive to scientists from various disciplines.

Cytometry as an interdisciplinary approach involves scientists from different disciplines (basic biology, clinical sciences, biotechnology and physics among many others). As major development in the post-genomic area, a vast amount of new targets with possible implications in disease and therapy have been identified with the need of characterization of these targets in their cellular context. Therefore, Cytometry and Cytometry-based high throughput screening are becoming increasingly important for verifying intracellular targets and their interactions with possible drugs. In this regard, the council will benefit from the combination of Henning’s expertise in interdisciplinary approaches including modern molecular and cell biology applications (SELEX, RNAi, stem-cell differentiation) and imaging technology.