Jens Rolff

Biography

2012 Professor, Free University Berlin. 2003-2011 NERC Research Fellow, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer University of Sheffield, UK 2001-2003 Marie Curie Research Fellow, University of Sheffield, UK 2000-2001 Postdoctoral research fellowship (DFG), Technische Universitaet Braunschweig, Germany and University of Sheffield, UK 1999 Postdoctoral research associate, Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College at Silwood Park, UK 1999 PhD, Technische Universitaet Braunschweig, Germany 1996 Diploma in Biology, Technische Universitaet Braunschweig, Germany

Research Interest

Currently most of my research is focused on understanding the evolution of long-lasting immune function in insects. Thanks to funding by the ERC we are investigating the hypothesis that antimicrobial peptides in insects deal with persistent infections and/or prevent the evolution of resistant bacterial mutants. The main questions are: (a) how to prevent the evolution of bacterial resistance against antimicrobials? (b) Why is it adaptive for insects to exhibit long lasting costly immune responses? We use the beetle Tenebrio molitor to examine the temporal dynamics of an antibacterial response using transcriptomics. Building on this we are manipulating the antimicrobial response in vivoand  in vitro. These experiments will investigate the response of the model pathogen Staphyloccocus aureus to the changes in the beetle's 'multidrug' response. S. aureus resistance to these experimental selection scenarios will be studied at the phenotypic and genomic level