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Katharina Gaus
Katharina Gaus (12 July 1972 – 3 March 2021)[3] was a German-Australian immunologist and molecular microscopist. She was an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow[4] and founding head of the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales.[5] Gaus used new super-resolution fluorescence microscopes[6][7][8] to examine the plasma membrane within intact living cells, and study cell signalling at the level of single molecules to better understand how cells "make decisions".[9] A key discovery of Gaus and her team was how T-cells decide to switch on the body's immune system to attack diseases.[10][11] Her work is of importance to the development of drugs that can work with T-cells in support of the immune system.[9] EducationGaus studied physics and mathematics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany and a MPhil (1996) and PhD (1999) from the Institute of Biotechnology[12] at the University of Cambridge.[1] While there she created a biosensor to detect protein-protein interactions and a ligand library, useful as a diagnostic tool.[12] CareerFollowing her studies at the University of Cambridge, Katharina joined the Cell Biology Group at the Heart Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, led by Roger Dean and Wendy Jessup.[13] Around 2002, she moved with Wendy Jessup's group to the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales.[12] She received several fellowships, spending three months of 2001 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working with Enrico Gratton before returning to Australia to take up an Australian Research Council postdoctoral fellowship.[14] In 2005 Gaus was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship and spent six months at the Max Planck Institute for Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany,[14] working in the laboratory of Kai Simons.[13] As of 2005, Gaus founded the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales.[12][13] As of 2009 she became a senior research fellow and associate professor of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in Australia.[13] Gaus was a member of the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, founded in 2011, which is based at the University of New South Wales.[15] She was also deputy director and a chief investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging.[16] Gaus was active in encouraging girls to enter scientific fields.[17] Gaus was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS) in 2015.[18] She died on 3 March 2021 aged 48.[19][20] Awards
References
External links Scholia has an author profile for Katharina Gaus.
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