Goethe University Frankfurt
We bridge basic science and clinical neurosurgery — decoding how brain metastasis, glioma and the cerebral vasculature shape one another, and turning that insight into better treatment.
Our mission
Our laboratory is dedicated to advancing the understanding and treatment of neurosurgically relevant disease. As part of the Department of Neurosurgery at University Hospital Frankfurt, we work at the point where clinical observation and basic biology meet.
Investigating the mechanisms behind brain metastasis, glioblastoma and neurovascular disorders — always anchored to a clinical question.
Confocal, two-photon and wide-field microscopy — including adaptive optics — to examine the brain at cellular and system scale.
Single-cell and high-dimensional expression profiling of patient-derived tissue, benchmarked against mouse models.
Working with clinical teams so discoveries reach practice — and so clinical observation keeps steering the laboratory.
Research programme
Each of our lines of work sits at the interface between tumour biology and the cerebral vasculature — the tissue that decides whether a therapy ever reaches its target.
Before a tumour cell ever arrives, the brain changes. We map metastatic and pre-metastatic tissue at single-cell resolution to find biomarkers that predict — and might prevent — brain and bone metastasis.
Anti-angiogenic therapy works — until it does not. Our work on Ephrin-B2/EphB4 signalling and vascular architecture asks why gliomas escape treatment.
Arterioles oscillate roughly once every ten seconds, independently of the heartbeat. We showed these oscillations form long-wavelength traveling waves that modulate cortical perfusion.
Better answers need better instruments. We build and apply adaptive-optics two-photon microscopy, chronic cranial windows and wide-field imaging.
Neuron 112(14) · 17 July 2024
Featured work
Using a combination of microscopic and biophysical methods, we visualised for the first time that the arterioles diving into the cerebral cortex pulsate independently of the heartbeat and of brain activity. These oscillations alter blood flow by 20% — and the effect is stronger at rest than in active brain regions.
The oscillations generate long-wavelength traveling waves that sweep along every arteriole at about two millimetres per second, in many different directions. The bulges they create on the vessel wall may help mix the cerebrospinal fluid bathing the brain, improving the clearance of misfolded proteins and metabolic waste — a mechanism that is disrupted in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.
“In further work here in Frankfurt, we will investigate how the traveling waves are altered during strokes, cerebral haemorrhages and neurodegenerative diseases, and what influence they have on the development of these diseases.” Thomas Broggini — first author, in the Goethe University press release, 31 July 2024
The team
Our interdisciplinary group brings together neurosurgical practice, molecular biology and optical physics — because none of these questions belongs to a single discipline.
Principal Investigator · Head of Laboratory · Working Group Leader
Thomas Broggini leads the Translational Neurosurgery Laboratory at the Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Frankfurt. His work combines optical imaging, small-animal microsurgery and advanced sequencing to understand how metastasis forms — in mouse and in patients — and how the cerebral vasculature governs what reaches the brain.
His route into science was not the usual one: he trained first as a chemistry laboratory technician in Switzerland, worked in industry, and only then studied biotechnology — an apprenticeship-first path he still credits for how he approaches an experiment.
Get in touch
Collaboration is at the heart of our mission. Whether you are a clinician, a researcher, or a student looking for a thesis project, we would like to hear from you — we host project weeks, practical seminars, MD and Master theses, and doctoral work.
The campus on the Main — the skyline that gives our lab its mark.