Adrian Press, born in 1989, studied molecular medicine for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Furtwangen and the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. He then obtained his doctoral degree at the medical faculty in Jena researching novel theranostic nanoparticles. During his postdoc, he specialized in researching biophotonic technologies to characterize and model septic organ failure and translate this knowledge to generate novel personalized therapeutics and diagnostics. After research internships at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Ashburn, USA, the Tokyo University of Science and Technology and the Innovation Center of NanoMedicine (iCONM), Japan, Lund University, Sweden, and Zhejiang University, PR China till 2020 he accepted the call for a position as Junior Professor at the Friedrich Schiller University for Molecular Medicine of Life-Threatening Infection.

Activities

Junior Professor Dr. Press is an active member of the Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Germany.

Awards

In 2010, Press received the award of the state of Baden-Württemberg for outstanding academic performance and in 2013 the award from Furtwangen University for the excellence of his bachelor thesis. In the same year, he and his colleagues were awarded the silver medal at the iENA for inventing new, targeted nanoparticles. In 2018 Press received the award as part of the LaserLab Europe (Horizon 2020) for a project to research 2D polarization microscopy to detect cytoskeletal changes in tissues.

Focus

The focus of Press is the research into the molecular mechanisms and the establishment of nanomedicine in life-threatening infections. For this purpose, the group combines molecular techniques with cutting-edge multimodal imaging. Correlating both technologies allows them to investigate molecular events in and between cells and their consequences for the disease and pharmaceutical interventions through nanomedicines. Another focus is on researching the mechanisms of new nanoparticles for use in infections and their interaction with cells and tissues to increase their selectivity and minimize side effects even under the most severe conditions.

Methods

• Molecular biology, cell biology
• Animal models
• Preclinical imaging
• Highly parallel host response screening