PD Dr. Jan Buellesbach
Heisenberg Fellowship
Molecular ecology of parasitoid chemoreception
Associate Professorship of Plant-Insect Interaction
Academic Career and Research Areas
PD Dr. Jan Buellesbach studied Biology (Diploma) at the University of Münster from 2000-2006, followed by a Master program in Bioinformatics at the University of Cologne. He earned his PhD (Dr. rer. nat./ PhD) in Evolutionary Biology and Chemical Ecology through a joint program between the University of Freiburg and Arizona State University in Tempe, USA in 2011. He then worked as a postdoctoral research scholar in Entomology at North Carolina State University from 2011 to 2012. Between 2013 and 2016, he served as the scientific manager of the Excellence Jena Graduate School for Microbial Communication. From 2016 to 2018, he was a research scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management. From 2018 to 2024, he was an assistant professor at the University of Münster, where he completed his habilitation in Evolutionary Chemical Ecology in 2023. In 2025, he became a Heisenberg associate professor at the Technical University of Munich.
The overarching theme of PD Dr. Jan Buellesbach's research constitutes the deciphering of chemical communication systems in insects where he is most fascinated by universally functioning elements in the chemical language that traverse large phylogenetic boundaries. He hereby pursues an interdisciplinary approach through the combination of evolutionary biology, chemical ecology, functional genetics, comparative genomics, analytical chemistry, mass spectrometry, bioinformatics, ethology, biochemistry and phylogenetics.
Awards
- Heisenberg grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) (2024)
- International Fellowship from the President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for guest research at Beijing, China (2023)
- PhD Scholarship from the Spemann Graduate School for Biology and Medicine (SGBM), provided by the Excellence Initiative of the German Research Foundation (DFG) (2007 - 2010)
- Student scholarship from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for Postgraduate studies in bioinformatics at the University of Cologne (2006 - 2007)
- Semester scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a semester abroad at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA (2003)
Key Publications (all publications)
Sun W., Lange M., Gadau J., Buellesbach J. (2023) “Decoding the genetic and chemical basis of sexual attractiveness in parasitic wasps“, eLife, 12:e86182, 10.7554/eLife.86182
Liu Y., Heath J.J., Zhanga S., van Wijk M., Wanga G., Buellesbach J., Wada-Katsumata A., Groot A.T., Schal C., (2023) “Endogenous and plant-derived courtship signals in male moths", Current Biology, 33(16): 3529-3535, 10.1016/j.cub.2023.07.010
Buellesbach J., Holze H., Schrader L., Liebig J., Schmitt T., Gadau J., Niehuis, O. (2022) “Genetic and genomic architecture of species-specific cuticular hydrocarbon variation in parasitoid wasps”. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 289(1976): 20220336 10.1098/rspb.2022.0336
Holze, H., Schrader, L. & Buellesbach, J. (2020) “Advances in deciphering the genetic basis of insect cuticular hydrocarbon biosynthesis and variation. Heredity, 126(2): 219–234 10.1038/s41437-020-00380-y
*Niehuis O., *Buellesbach, J., *Gibson J.D., Pothman D., Hanner C., Mutti N., Judson A.K., Liebig J., Gadau J., *Ruther J., Schmitt T. (2013) “Behavioural and genetic analysis on Nasonia shed light on the evolution of sex pheromones”, (*Authors contributed equally), Nature 494(7437):345-348 10.1038/nature11838
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