After receiving his Diploma in Biology from the Ruhr University Bochum in the Department of Biophysics (Klaus Gerwert), Andre conducted his Ph.D. studies at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, in the group of Nobel Laureate Stefan Hell and under the supervision of Stefan Jakobs where he was pivotal in pioneering the field of photo-switchable proteins for super-resolution imaging. After receiving his Ph.D. from the Ruprecht-Karls University, Heidelberg, in 2008 Andre moved for a postdoctoral stay to the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen, where he worked on computer aided protein engineering in the group of Birte Höcker, specifically pioneering a sensor for direct visualization of auxin which created significant attention. During his time in Tübingen Andre spend time as a guest researcher at the HHMI research campus Janelia Farm.
In 2015 Andre moved to Munich to start the CellEngineering group at the Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging (Vasilis Ntziachristos). Since then, Andre is key to advancing the field of reporters and sensors for innovative optical imaging methods like optoacoustic imaging or super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. His focus is on genetically encoded contrast agents since only such agents allow longitudinal and unperturbed imaging in live cells and research animals to truly understand biology and diseases contexts. Andre also picked up on his favorite topic of photo-switchable proteins, by introducing photo- switching as a unique way to overcome background limitations in optoacoustic imaging and enable the method for the visualization of small cell numbers deep in the animal.
Andre and his team primarily use protein engineering concepts that incorporate knowledge from photophysical studies, protein structures and computational protein design and combine those insights with efficient screening concepts to identify novel reporters or sensors for the next pressing questions in imaging biology.
Andre is primarily funded through national (German Research Foundation (DFG); Helmholtz Center Munich), European (ERC, Consolidator Grant 2020; EIC, Pathfinder, 2021) and international funding initiatives (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)).
