Lothar Hennighausen

Short CV

Lothar Hennighausen is a geneticist whose career includes contributions in academia and government. A native of a small town in Germany, he performed undergraduate work in Germany and Scotland, and earned his Ph.D. in Genetics with magna cum laude from the University of Cologne (Germany) in 1982. He conducted research with Dr. Philip Leder at Harvard and joined the National Institutes of Health (USA) to establish a research group in 1985. Hennighausen presently leads a research laboratory that explores genetic circuitry underlying cytokine signaling in mammary tissue and immune cells using genomic tools and mouse genetics. His research covers the more prosaic investigations of milk protein gene expression, the wide-reaching explorations of cytokine signaling through the transcription factor STAT5 and the discovery of super-enhancers in the mammary genome through genome editing. Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hennighausen coordinated international collaborations aimed at understanding the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 variants. Hennighausen’s h-index is 108. Hennighausen takes the same enthusiastic approach to activities outside the lab as he does inside. He is an avid ultra-long-distance cyclist and finisher of numerous global 1200km events, including Paris-Brest-Paris. He is married to Dr. Priscilla Furth, a cancer researcher and Professor at Georgetown University. He has four grown children, living in Germany and the US.


Selected Awards

  • 2020, Hans Fischer Senior Fellowship, TUM
  • 2019, Director’s Award, National Institutes of Health (NIH) (USA)
  • 2017, Director’s Award, National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH
  • 2017, Orloff Award, National Heart and Lung Institute, NIH
  • 2012, Distinguished Lecture Series, Lady Davis Institute, McGill, Montreal (Canada)
  • 2008, Distinguished World Class Scholar, Korean Society of Science and Engineering (South Korea)
  • 2007, Mercator Professorship, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
  • 2003, Olof Pearson Award, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland (USA)
  • 2002, Humboldt Research Prize, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
  • 1987, Selected Speaker, National Press Club, Washington D.C. (USA)

Research Interests

Dr. Hennighausen’ research interests are at the interface between genetics, physiology and disease. He uses molecular and computational tools to monitor the mammalian genome and to identify primal regulatory switches controlling genetic programs. Through modern mouse genetics he strives to decipher the molecular pathology of mutations linked to human disease. Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hennighausen and colleagues from the München Klink and TUM established a program focused on clinical and genomic studies aimed at understanding the immune response to COVID-19 vaccines in high-risk patient groups.


Selected Publications

PubMed
Google Scholar

  •  Lee HK, Knabl L, Pipperger L, Volland A, Furth PA, Smith HE, Knabl L, Bellmann R, Bernhard C, Kaiser N, Ganzer H, Strohle M, Walser A, con Laer D, Hennighausen L (2021) Immune transcriptomes of highly exposed SARS-CoV-2 asymptomatic seropositive versus seronegative individuals from the Ischgl community. Scientific Reports, (PMID: 33608566). 4 citations.
  • Lee HK, Willi M, Miller SM, Kim S, Liu C, Liu DR, Hennighausen L (2018) Targeting fidelity of adenine and cytosine base editors in mice. Nature Commun. (PMID: 30442934). 52 citations.
  • Shin HY, Wang C, Lee HK, Yoo KH, Zeng X, Kuhns T, Yang CM, Mohr T, Liu C, Hennighausen L. (2017) CRISPR/Cas9 targeting events cause complex deletions and insertions at 17 sites in the mouse genome. Nat. Commun. (PMID: 28561021). 158 citations.
  • Shin HY, Willi M, Yoo KH, Zeng X, Wang C, Metser G and Hennighausen L (2016) Hierarchy within the mammary STAT5-driven Wap super-enhancer. Nature Genetics, 48, 904-911 (PMID: 27376239). 148 citations.
  • Yamaji, D., Robinson, W.G., Na, R., Feuermann, Y., Pechold, S., Chen, W. and Hennighausen, L. (2009) Development of mammary luminal progenitor c.ells is controlled by the transcription factor STAT5A. Genes and Development, 23, 2382-2387. 138 citations.
  • Cui, Y., Riedlinger, G., Miyoshi, K., Tang, W., Li, C., Deng, C.X., Robinson, G.W. and Hennighausen, L. (2004) Inactivation of Stat5 in mouse mammary epithelium during pregnancy reveals distinct functions in cell proliferation, survival and differentiation. Mol. Cell. Biol., 24, 8037-8047. (PMID: 15340066). 542 citations.
  • Wagner, K.-U., Wall, R.J., St-Onge, L., Gruss, P., Garrett, L., Wynshaw-Boris, A., Li, M., Furth, P.A. and Hennighausen, L. (1997) Cre mediated gene deletion in the mammary gland.  Nucleic Acids. Res. 25, 4323-4330. 533 citations.
  • Liu, X., Robinson, G.W., Wagner, K.-U., Garrett, L., Wynshaw-Boris, A. and Hennighausen, L. (1997) Stat5a is mandatory for adult mammary gland development and lactogenesisGenes and Dev. 11, 179-186 (PMID: 9009201). 1274 citations.
  • Ewald, D., Li, M., Efrat, S., Auer, G., Wall, R.J., Furth, P.A. and Hennighausen, L. (1996) Time-sensitive reversal of hyperplasia in transgenic mice expressing SV40 T antigen.  Science 273, 1384-1386. 274 citations.
  • Furth, P.A., St. Onge, L., Boger, H., Gruss, P., Gossen, M., Kistner, A., Bujard, H. and Hennighausen, L. (1994) Temporal control of gene expression in transgenic mice by a tetracycline responsive promoter.  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91, 9302-9306. 984 citations.
  • Gordon, K., Lee, E., Vitale, J.A., Smith, A.E., Westphal, H. and Hennighausen, L. (1987) Production of human tissue plasminogen activator in transgenic mouse milk.  BIO/TECHNOLOGY 5, 1183-1187. 371 citations.
  • Hennighausen, L.G. and Sippel, A.E. (1982) Characterization and cloning of the mRNAs specific for the lactating mouse mammary gland.  Eur. J. Biochem. 125, 131-141. 155 citations.

Publications as TUM-IAS-Fellow

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf8'?> Hoffmann, Markus;Schwartz, Leon;Ciora, Octavia-Andreea;Trummer, Nico;Willruth, Lina-Liv;Jankowski, Jakub;Lee, Hye Kyung;Baumbach, Jan;Furth, Priscilla A;Hennighausen, Lothar;List, Markus 2024-02-08T16:12:59 ge89dos 10.1093/bioadv/vbad093 2635-0041 1 Bioinformatics Advances 3 2023-01-01 Oxford University Press (OUP) circRNA-sponging: a pipeline for extensive analysis of circRNA expression and their role in miRNA sponging Zeitschriftenaufsatz 2023-00-00T00:00:00 <b>Author(s):</b> Hoffmann, Markus;Schwartz, Leon;Ciora, Octavia-Andreea;Trummer, Nico;Willruth, Lina-Liv;Jankowski, Jakub;Lee, Hye Kyung;Baumbach, Jan;Furth, Priscilla A;Hennighausen, Lothar;List, Markus<br/><b>Title:</b> circRNA-sponging: a pipeline for extensive analysis of circRNA expression and their role in miRNA sponging<br/><b>Journal title:</b> Bioinformatics Advances<br/><b>Year:</b> 2023<br/><b>Volume:</b> 3<br/><b>Issue:</b> 1 Hoffmann, Markus;Willruth, Lina-Liv;Dietrich, Alexander;Lee, Hye Kyung;Knabl, Ludwig;Trummer, Nico;Jankowski, Jakub;Baumbach, Jan;Furth, Priscilla;Hennighausen, Lothar;List, Markus Insights into SARS-CoV-2 Immune Responses, Disease Severity, and Optimal Sequencing Depth 2024-02-08T16:13:13 ge89dos 10.14293/gof.23.43 2023-01-01 ScienceOpen Insights into SARS-CoV-2 Immune Responses, Disease Severity, and Optimal Sequencing Depth Konferenzbeitrag 2023-00-00T00:00:00 <b>Author(s):</b> Hoffmann, Markus;Willruth, Lina-Liv;Dietrich, Alexander;Lee, Hye Kyung;Knabl, Ludwig;Trummer, Nico;Jankowski, Jakub;Baumbach, Jan;Furth, Priscilla;Hennighausen, Lothar;List, Markus<br/><b>Title:</b> Insights into SARS-CoV-2 Immune Responses, Disease Severity, and Optimal Sequencing Depth<br/><b>Book / Congress title:</b> Insights into SARS-CoV-2 Immune Responses, Disease Severity, and Optimal Sequencing Depth<br/><b>Publisher:</b> ScienceOpen<br/><b>Year:</b> 2023 Background Eukaryotic gene expression is controlled by cis-regulatory elements (CREs) including promoters and enhancers which are bound by transcription factors (TFs). Differential expression of TFs and their putative binding sites on CREs cause tissue and developmental-specific transcriptional activity. Consolidating genomic data sets can offer further insights into the accessibility of CREs, TF activity, and thus gene regulation. However, the integration and analysis of multi-modal data sets are hampered by considerable technical challenges. While methods for highlighting differential TF activity from combined ChIP-seq and RNA-seq data exist, they do not offer good usability, have limited support for large-scale data processing, and provide only minimal functionality for visual result interpretation.Results We developed TF-Prioritizer, an automated java pipeline to prioritize condition-specific TFs derived from multi-modal data. TF-Prioritizer creates an interactive, feature-rich, and user-friendly web report of its results. To showcase the potential of TF-Prioritizer, we identified known active TFs (e.g., Stat5, Elf5, Nfib, Esr1), their target genes (e.g., milk proteins and cell-cycle genes), and newly classified lactating mammary gland TFs (e.g., Creb1, Arnt).Conclusion TF-Prioritizer accepts ChIP-seq and RNA-seq data, as input and suggests TFs with differential activity, thus offering an understanding of genome-wide gene regulation, potential pathogenesis, and therapeutic targets in biomedical research.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.View this table: Hoffmann, Markus;Trummer, Nico;Jankowski, Jakub;Lee, Hye Kyung;Willruth, Lina-Liv;Lazareva, Olga;Yuan, Kevin;Baumgarten, Nina;Schmidt, Florian;Baumbach, Jan;Schulz, Marcel H.;Blumenthal, David B.;Hennighausen, Lothar;List, Markus 2023-02-15T11:38:07 ge74zoq 10.1101/2022.10.19.512881 2022.10.19.512881 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/10/21/2022.10.19.512881.full.pdf bioRxiv Hoffmann2022.10.19.512881 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory TF-Prioritizer: a java pipeline to prioritize condition-specific transcription factors Zeitschriftenaufsatz https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/10/21/2022.10.19.512881 2022-00-00T00:00:00 <b>Author(s):</b> Hoffmann, Markus;Trummer, Nico;Jankowski, Jakub;Lee, Hye Kyung;Willruth, Lina-Liv;Lazareva, Olga;Yuan, Kevin;Baumgarten, Nina;Schmidt, Florian;Baumbach, Jan;Schulz, Marcel H.;Blumenthal, David B.;Hennighausen, Lothar;List, Markus<br/><b>Title:</b> TF-Prioritizer: a java pipeline to prioritize condition-specific transcription factors<br/><b>Journal title:</b> bioRxiv<br/><b>Year:</b> 2022 2023-00-00T00:00:00 ]]></attribute> </item> <item index="1" id="1735219" type="document"> <attribute name="year"><![CDATA[2023-00-00T00:00:00 ]]></attribute> </item> <item index="2" id="1699844" type="document"> <attribute name="year"><![CDATA[2022-00-00T00:00:00 <![CDATA[]]>