Dr. Nils Klüver

Nils Klüver completed his Ph.D. in molecular and developmental biology at the University of Würzburg, studying the molecular mechanism of gonad development in fish. He did a postdoc at the National University of Singapore at the Department for Biological Sciences. In July 2008, he joined the Department of Bioanalytical Ecotoxicology at the UFZ Leipzig. Since April 2015 he became member of the Department of Cell Toxicology and he is involved in the iPiE project (intelligent Assessment of Pharmaceuticals in the Environment) which aims to develop frameworks that utilize information from toxicological studies, pharmacological mode of action and in silico models to support more intelligent environmental testing of pharmaceuticals in development and to prioritize legacy pharmaceuticals for full environmental risk assessment and/or environmental (bio) monitoring.

His research is focused on the development of animal alternatives for risk assessment by using the zebrafish embryo. He was awarded recently with the EPAA 3Rs Science Award 2012 to perform a post-validation study for the zebrafish embryo toxicity test (ZFET) to define or extent the applicability domain in order to increase the prediction power for the acute fish toxicity test and beyond. A particular focus of the work is on the optimization of assessment methods for sublethal endpoints, e.g. behavioral assays, heart beat and blood flow measurements and gene expression changes (toxicity pathways) to increase predictivity of the zebrafish embryo model for adult fish toxicity (acute and chronic). He has experience in linking toxicogenomic and behavioral responses of sublethal chemical exposures in the zebrafish embryo to specific modes of action and respective biomarkers. He is interested in toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic processes to relate observed effects to internal concentrations in the zebrafish embryo model. By performing gene knock downs he studies specific gene functions during embryo development in combination with chemical exposures. Furthermore he has an interest in improving the fish plasma model (FPM) for hazard identification of pharmaceuticals in the environment by considering the specific physicochemical properties and drug target conservation.

A current list of publications can be found at http://www.researcherid.com/rid/D-8678-2015.