Stefan Weiss, PhD
Primary tabs
JAD profile
Affiliation(s):
University of the Witwatersrand
Areas of Interest:
aging, Alzheimer's Disease therapy, cancer therapy, laminin receptor (LRP/LR) biology, prion disorders, telomerase, telomeres
Biography & Research:
Professor Weiss obtained his Bachelor Degree in Biology from the University of Bielefeld, Germany in 1985. In 1988, he obtained his Master of Science in Biology from the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg, Germany. In 1992, Professor Weiss obtained his PhD for his dissertation focusing on HIV-1 Therapeutics blocking HIV Reverse Transcriptase also from the University of Heidelberg. Between 1997 and 2001, he obtained a series of visitor fellowships from the CEA in Paris, France. In 2002, Professor Weiss obtained the Venia Legendi for Biochemistry from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich and taught between 2002 and 2009 Biochemistry at the same University.
In July 2009 he was appointed as Professor of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Science, School of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of the Witwatersrand. Since November 2009 Prof Weiss is Member of Senate of the University of the Witwatersrand and Senior Executive of the Molecular Bioscience Research Thrust (MBRT), a cross-faculty initiative of Wits University.
Since 2015, he is member of the prestigious Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).
Professor Weiss was awarded a B1 rating from the National Research Foundation (NRF), South Africa. He published 45 Original Publications, 22 Review Articles, 5 book chapters, one Editorial commentary and one meeting report and has five patents. His publications have been cited 2400 times (Scopus) and he is holding an h-index of 23 (ISI). He is an Editorial Board Member of ten international peer-review Journals including Nature’s Scientific Reports, PLOS One, Journal of infectious Diseases and Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, acts as a referee for 58 international peer-review Journals and as a reviewer for 15 research foundations. He received 3 Million Euros for his research from European Research Organisations and has been awarded ZAR 3.7 Million from South African Foundations (NRF and SAMRC). Professor Weiss supervised 7 postdoctoral fellows, 9 PhD students, 16 Master students, 7 Bachelor students and 14 Honours students.
He is currently supervising 5 Master Students and is hosting 1 Postdoctoral Fellow.
Prof Weiss’ research interests concentrate on neurodegenerative diseases focusing on Alzheimer’s Disease as well as metastatic cancer aiming to identify powerful therapeutics for an effective treatment of these diseases. He is also interested in telomerase biology with respect to cancer treatment and anti-aging strategies.
