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My Name is Maximilian Wiesmann and I was born in 1988 in Bocholt, Germany. I am tenure tracker in the department of Medical Imaging, Anatomy. My line of research is translational neuroimaging, investigating the effect of hypertension and stroke, both major vascular risk factors for dementia, on brain structure and function in both mice and men. My aim is to combine human (in vivo/ postmortem) with mouse (in vivo/ postmortem) neuroimaging studies on vascular risk factors for dementia (like obesity, hypertension, stroke) to provide more mechanistic insights and to improve clinical diagnostics of neuroimaging data, therewith having a significant impact on health care. My research belongs to the Alzheimer theme.
Where do you live?
I currently live in Bocholt (Germany), together with my wife Verena and our daughter, Marie, plus our Portuguese dog, Balou. Bocholt is close to the Dutch border (Achterhoek).
When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up? Can you tell us something about your childhood years?
As a child, I first wanted to become first a cardiac surgeon, followed by a dentist, and finally a veterinary physician, so all into the medical direction. In my current position I am also teaching dentistry students, bringing me partly back to one of my childhood dreams. As mentioned above, Bocholt is close to the Dutch border, enabling my family and me doing groceries in the Netherlands several times a month. So I was also growing up with Dutch “hagelslag”,”vla” etc. Moreover, already having been taught Dutch at my grammar school helped me extremely during my study, social activities, and also my work here in Nijmegen.
What was your previous academic training, where did you study and why did you choose that study/those studies?
I have always been interested in biology, but also in medicine, which is why I studied Medical Biology at the Faculty of Science of the Radboud University. In 2012, I applied for a PhD position at the RadboudUMC being a collaborative project between the departments of Anatomy, Geriatric Medicine, and Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. During both my PhD and postdoc I have also worked at the European Institute for Molecular Imaging, Münster, Germany, to learn the preclinical stroke induction and several new (imaging) techniques. At the beginning of my postdoc, I have worked for the department of Anatomy and for the department of Neurology, followed by my tenure track at the department of Medical Imaging/ Anatomy.
Which of your research discoveries are you most proud of?
During my PhD I was involved in a study testing, if a multicomponent diet could act as an therapeutic approach after an experimental stroke. Notably, this experimental diet was able to restore stroke-induced pathological changes like the reduced blood flow in the brain of both male and female mice. In my translational hypertension research we were able to show that midlife hypertension in “healthy” control mice leads to abnormalities that mimic Alzheimer’s disease.
What is your most important scientific challenge in the coming 5 years?
One of my most important scientific challenges in the coming 5 years is to build up my own research line. Therefore, I will be applying for several research grants taking much time and effort. Lately, for the upcoming 2 years I have received a long-term fellowship of Alzheimer Nederland to establish an international collaboration with both the Medical university of Graz (Prof. Reinhold Schmidt) and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Prof. Marco Düring) being another major scientific challenge for me. Here, I will work on correlating postmortem MRI and immunohistochemistry brain data to improve the interpretation of imaging data in dementia.
If you could choose any mentor, who would it be?
I have always been mentored by a translational team of mentors during both my PhD (Prof. Kiliaan, Dr. Claassen, Prof. Heerschap) and my postdoc (Prof. de Leeuw, Prof. Kiliaan) helping me to both work in and understand both clinical and preclinical research (worlds). So for my future I would love to choose Prof. Costantino Iadecola as my mentor being the pioneer in establishing the concept of the neurovascular unit. He is a neurologist whose research focuses on ischemic brain injury, neurodegeneration and cognitive impairment, but concentrating here on the basic mechanisms of neurovascular function and on the underlying cellular and molecular alterations.
What is your favorite topic: molecules - patients - population?
As you might already understood from my introduction: both from mice to men and from men to mice.
What should be changed / improved in the scientific community?
Scientific research should combine more often clinical and preclinical research to study together underlying pathological mechanisms next to clinical symptoms/outcome in for example complex pathophysiological diseases like dementia. Moreover, the increasing bureaucracy for applying for grants, reporting on grants/ PhD students/ Master students etc. needs to be reduced to spend this time again on research.
Is there anything we can wake you up for in the middle of the night?
I am sleeping less than normal people. This means that I am usually awake in the middle of the night. But I would never say no to good Sushi.
What is the thing that irritates you most?
Arrogant researchers accepting no other opinions
Who would you like to have dinner with, if you had the chance?
With all my grandparents. Unfortunately, they all passed away too early, and they could never meet our now almost 1-year-old daughter.
How do you relax from the demanding job being a scientist?
Swimming, watching trash-tv together with my wife, walking our dog together with my daughter and/or wife, and working in our (little) garden.
Do you have a tip for our most junior scientists?
Love, what you are doing! So hard work won’t feel so hard! If you do not know, how to solve an issue/ problem, do not hesitate to ask for help!
Please add a photo which represents a remarkable event or experience you were part of? Please explain.
This photo has been taken after the successful PhD defence of a PhD student, of which I have been for the first time a co-promotor, making me feel quite proud for her.
