Anton Windfelder


Anton George Windfelder is a German zoologist and immunologist whose primary research interests include functional imaging of insects.

Life

Windfelder became known after he established the caterpillars of the tobacco hornworm as an alternative animal model for medical research. His work has received international attention and helps to reduce the number of mammals in medical research according to the 3R principle.
Windfelder was born in Berlin, where he also graduated from high school. After this, Windfelder studied biology at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, with a major in zoology, and became scientifically active early on during his studies. After graduation, Windfelder became a research associate at the Institute of General Zoology and Developmental Biology in the research group for cellular recognition and defense processes led by Tina Trenczek.
Windfelder received his doctorate in 2021 on the topic "High-throughput screening of insect larvae as a replacement for mammalian models of gut inflammation" from Tina Trenczek and Ulrich Flögel. The doctorate was awarded with the highest grade summa cum laude, and Windfelder was awarded the Dr.-Herbert-Stolzenberg-Prize for outstanding achievements in biology in 2023 for his work. After receiving his doctorate, Windfelder moved to the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology to work with Andreas Vilcinskas. He is also employed at the University Hospital Giessen in Experimental Radiology. Windfelder is also involved in university teaching and advocates the use of new didactic methods, such as virtual reality, in medical education.
During his time in Giessen, Windfelder met his wife. Windfelder is married and has two children.

Scientific work

Windfelder's scientific focus is on the functional imaging of insects. He exploits medical imaging methods such as computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, or photoacoustic imaging to study physiological and immunological processes in insects. He was the first scientist to use 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography to show pathological glucose metabolism in tobacco hornworms with gut inflammation His work shows that the previously mentioned methods can also be used in insects to detect inflammation in analogy to humans.
This allows insects to be better protected from harmful influences such as pesticides, as the adverse effects of these substances can now be detected more easily. On the other hand, insects can be used as alternative animal models in biomedical research. Due to the close evolutionary conservation of the innate immune system and the anatomy of the intestinal epithelium between insects and mammals, insects represent excellent models for studying gut inflammation. For this purpose, Windfelder and his team established the larvae of the tobacco hornworm using the above methods as an alternative animal model for chronic inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. In addition, new promising contrast agents for radiology or tracers for nuclear medicine can first be tested on insects instead of mice or rats, as was previously the case. Since Windfelder's research helps reduce the number of experiments involving small mammals, his research also significantly contributes to animal welfare.

Literature (selection)