Dietmar Schmucker

Prof Schmucker did his Ph.D. at the Max-Planck Institute in Goettingen, Germany in 1995. The subject was Drosophila Neurogenetics, his supervisor Dr. H. Jaeckle. He went on to do a 4 year postdoc at UCLA with Larry Zipursky, HHMI Investigator Los Angeles . At the end of 2001 Prof Schmucker started his own lab as Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology, with promotion to Associated Professor January 2008. He then got recruited to VIB Leuven end of 2009 and has been a group leader at VIB since.

Throughout his professional career his research interest was on neuronal wiring, with a focus on genetics, biochemistry and imaging. Prof Schmucker discovered the molecular diversity of the neuronal receptor Dscam1, providing tens of thousands receptor isoforms, essential for neuronal self-avoidance and axonal branching.