Contact information
gero.miesenboeck@magd.ox.ac.uk
01865 282261
Fiona Woods
fiona.woods@dpag.ox.ac.uk
Research groups
Websites
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Gero's TED Talk
Optogenetics explained
Gero Miesenboeck
Director, Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour
- Waynflete Professor of Physiology
Gero Miesenböck studied medicine at the University of Innsbruck in his native Austria and did postdoctoral research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He was on the faculty of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Yale University before coming to Oxford in 2007. Gero is the founding director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (CNCB).
He has received numerous international awards for the invention of optogenetics, including the InBev Baillet-Latour International Health Prize (2012), the Brain Prize (2013), the Heinrich Wieland Prize (2015), the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2016), the Massry Prize (2016), and the Shaw Prize (2020). Gero is a member of the Austrian and German Academies of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Key publications
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A potassium channel β-subunit couples mitochondrial electron transport to sleep.
Journal article
Kempf A. et al, (2019), Nature
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Operation of a homeostatic sleep switch.
Journal article
Pimentel D. et al, (2016), Nature, 536, 333 - 337
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Neuronal machinery of sleep homeostasis in Drosophila.
Journal article
Donlea JM. et al, (2014), Neuron, 81, 860 - 872
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Remote control of behavior through genetically targeted photostimulation of neurons.
Journal article
Lima SQ. and Miesenböck G., (2005), Cell, 121, 141 - 152
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Selective photostimulation of genetically chARGed neurons.
Journal article
Zemelman BV. et al, (2002), Neuron, 33, 15 - 22
Recent publications
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Mitochondrial origins of the pressure to sleep.
Journal article
Sarnataro R. et al, (2025), Nature
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Sleep pressure accumulates in a voltage-gated lipid peroxidation memory.
Journal article
Rorsman HO. et al, (2025), Nature
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Transient photocurrents in a subthreshold evidence accumulator accelerate perceptual decisions.
Journal article
Wong TLH. et al, (2023), Nat Commun, 14
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Response competition between neurons and antineurons in the mushroom body.
Journal article
Vrontou E. et al, (2021), Curr Biol
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Changes in Presynaptic Gene Expression during Homeostatic Compensation at a Central Synapse.
Journal article
Harrell ER. et al, (2021), J Neurosci, 41, 3054 - 3067