Till Luckenbach, PhD
Environmental Toxicologist
Room: 229 (6.0)
Tel.: 0341-235-1514
Fax: 0341-235-1787
Short resumee
1998: Diploma in biology, University of Tübingen
2002: PhD, University of Tübingen
2002: Postdoc, MPI für Entwickungsbiologie, Tübingen
2002-2005: Postdoc, Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, Pacific Grove, USA
since 2006: Researcher at the UFZ, Department of Cell Toxicology
Grants: Fellowships from the DFG, the DAAD and the state of Baden-Württemberg
Current funding: DFG Early career grant
Awards: SETAC Best Publication Award 2006
Research interests
Nature is full of toxins. Cells have developed mechanisms that enable them to deal with such chemicals and survive. An example for such a protective mechanism are molecular pumps that prevent xenobiotics from accumulating inside the cell. These pumps – transporter proteins located in the membrane – confer resistance against a wide range of chemicals, which was therefore dubbed multixenobiotic resistance (MXR).
My research focuses on interactions of anthropogenic environmental chemicals with this protective mechanism. Thus, it could be a problem that the function of the transporters is affected through such interactions.
We aim at identifying environmental chemicals acting as so called chemosensitizers and investigate toxicological consequences of action of environmental chemosensitizers.
List of relevant publications
Luckenbach, T., Epel, D., 2008. ABCB and ABCC type transporters confer multixenobiotic resistance and form an environment-tissue barrier in bivalve gills. American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 294(6):R1919-29.
Epel D., Luckenbach T., Stevenson C.N., MacManus-Spencer L.A., Hamdoun A., Smital T., 2008. Efflux transporters: newly appreciated roles in protection against pollutants. Environmental Science & Technology, 42(11):3914-3920.
Luckenbach T., Altenburger R., Epel D., 2008. Teasing apart activities of different types of ABC efflux pumps in bivalve gills using the concepts of independent action and concentration addition. Marine Environmental Research, 66:75-76
Scholz S., Fischer S., Gundel U., Küster E., Luckenbach T., Voelker D., 2008. The zebrafish embryo model in environmental risk assessment--applications beyond acute toxicity testing. Environmental Science and Pollution Research International, 15:394-404.
Stevenson C., MacManus-Spencer L., Luckenbach T., Luthy R., Epel D., 2006. New perspectives on perfluorochemical ecotoxicology: inhibition and induction of an efflux transporter in the marine mussel, Mytilus californianus. Environmental Science and Technology, 40(17):5580-5585 .
Luckenbach T., Epel D., 2005. Nitromusk and polycyclic musk compounds as long-term inhibitors of cellular xenobiotic defense systems mediated by multi-drug transporters. Environmental Health Perspectives 113(1):17-24.
Luckenbach, T., Corsi, I., Epel, D., 2004. Fatal attraction: synthetic musk fragrances compromise multixenobiotic defense systems in mussels. Marine Environmental Research, 58:215-219.
Smital, T., Luckenbach, T., Sauerborn, R., Hamdoun, A., Vega, B., Epel, D. 2004. Emerging contaminants--pesticides, PPCPs, microbial degradation products and natural substances as inhibitors of multixenobiotic defense in aquatic organisms. Mutation Research, 552(1-2):101-17.