Professor Federico Calegari becomes new director of the CRTD

Effective January 1, 2021, Prof. Federico Calegari became director of the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at TU Dresden. He succeeded Prof. Michael Brand who led the institute for the last two years.

“It is a great privilege and responsibility to represent the CRTD in the coming years. I have been part of the CRTD for almost 15 years and throughout those years, I have seen it develop and flourish. CRTD continues to gain more and more international visibility and prestige. This wouldn’t be possible without the dedication and vision of the many exceptional people working here,” says Prof. Calegari. “I am grateful to the faculty for their trust in choosing me as the new director. I look forward to working with our researchers, the staff of our cutting-edge technology platform and our amazing administration to make the CRTD a more inclusive and dynamic place that makes our scientific dreams possible,” adds Prof. Calegari.

Federico Calegari is a Professor for proliferation of mammalian neural stem cells at the TU Dresden since 2014. His academic career started at the CNR – Center of Cellular Pharmacology in Milan, Italy, where he completed his doctoral studies. In 2001, he moved to Dresden to join the research group of Prof. Wieland Huttner at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2007 he established his own research group at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at TU Dresden.

Professor Calegari and his research group study the proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells, the cells that give rise to all neurons in the brain. The group wants to understand how the brain forms during the development and how does it function throughout life. The long-term goal of the Calegari research group is to gather enough understanding of the molecular processes to gain control of neural stem cells and use them to rescue brain deficits associated with aging or disease.