Event Short Talks and Discussion: Evolutionary Cell Biology meets Neuroscience
Press Release No. 137/2025
2 December 2025
Yasin Dagdas and Simon Wiegert to speak as part of the “Bio(R)evolution – New Faces, New Ideas, New Horizons” series
Evolutionary cell biology meets neuroscience: In a joint event, Prof. Dr Yasin Dagdas and Prof. Dr Simon J. Wiegert are set to present their current research, inviting both the academic community and curious members of the public to engage in a discussion on the potential societal impacts of their work. The two short talks, followed by a moderated panel discussion, are part of the series “Bio(R)evolution – New Faces, New Ideas, New Horizons”. With these events, the Faculty of Biosciences at Heidelberg University is providing a platform for newly appointed professors to present their visionary research questions and, at the same time, highlight the relevance of the fundamental research conducted at Ruperto Carola in addressing major societal challenges. The event will be held in English on 4 December 2025.
At the Centre for Organismal Studies (COS), Prof. Dagdas and his team are researching the evolutionary origins and molecular foundations of selective autophagy in plants, a cellular self-cleaning process. By breaking down damaged or misfolded proteins, this process helps to maintain cellular equilibrium and increase the resilience of plants. In his talk, Prof. Dagdas will explain which signaling pathways are involved in this cellular quality control process at the molecular level. Before joining Heidelberg, Yasin Dagdas led a research group at the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology in Vienna (Austria) and conducted research in various positions at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge (UK). In 2024, he was appointed Professor of Molecular Organismal Biology at the Faculty of Biosciences at Heidelberg University.
In the field of neuroscience, Prof. Wiegert’s research addresses how neural circuits in the brain encode, store, and adapt information. To gain new insights into the plasticity and connectivity of such synaptic connections, he combines approaches from optogenetics and electrophysiology with photometric and imaging techniques. The researcher is developing innovative optical tools and strategies that can be used to control and monitor neural activity. In his talk, he will discuss their significance to our understanding of learning and memory formation as well as diseases of the brain. Before his appointment in 2022 as Professor of Neurophysiology at the Medical Faculty Mannheim of Heidelberg University, Simon Wiegert led an independent research group at the Center for Molecular Neurobiology of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. He is co-director of the Mannheim Center for Translational Neuroscience.
Featured in the “Bio(R)evolution – New Faces, New Ideas, New Horizons” series, the event “Evolutionary Cell Biology meets Neuroscience” presents short talks by Prof. Dagdas and Prof. Wiegert, each 20 to 25 minutes in length. This will be followed by a moderated panel discussion addressing the broader societal implications of their research. This public event will take place on 4 December 2025 at 6 p.m. in the Bertalanffy Lecture Hall at the Centre for Organismal Studies, Im Neuenheimer Feld 230. A reception will follow, offering a chance for informal conversation.