Dr. Julian Wolf, MD MSc is a clinician-scientist and ophthalmologist at the University of Freiburg, Germany.
Dr. Wolf engages in translational research with the goal of finding new therapies for blinding eye diseases,
including age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. His interests include combining cutting-edge omics technology,
systems biology, and artificial intelligence to assess the mechanisms of aging and disease of the human eye that he validates
in animal and in vitro models.
Dr. Wolf graduated medical school in Germany and started his ophthalmology residency training at the University of Freiburg,
where he was awarded the Henning Zügel Foundation Award for excellence in research. He identified a new therapeutic target for
neovascular age-related macular degeneration and developed a web resource
(https://www.eye-transcriptome.com)
that allows scientists to explore his data covering gene expression profiles of human eye diseases. For his work, he was awarded the prestigious Helmholtz
Research Award of the German Society of Ophthalmology.
As a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ophthalmology at Stanford University, Dr. Wolf developed computational
methods that integrate liquid biopsy proteomics, single cell transcriptomics, and artificial intelligence to investigate
aging and disease mechanisms at the cell level in living patients (Wolf et al., Cell, 2023). For his work, he was awarded
the Research Award of the VitreoRetinal Surgery Foundation. Dr. Wolf graduated with a Master of Science in Translational
Research and Applied Medicine from Stanford University. Together with world-class scientists, industry leaders, and successful
entrepreneurs, he developed strategies how his scientific discoveries in the laboratory could one day improve his patients' lives.
Dr. Wolf has published more than 45 peer-reviewed manuscripts, among them first-authorships in Cell, BBA Molecular Basis of Disease, and Genomics.
Contact
Academic qualifications
03/2022 - 02/2024:
Postdoctoral Research Scholarship, Molecular Surgery and Omics Laboratory, Department of Ophthalmology, Byers Eye Institute, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA
09/2023:
Master of Science in Translational Research and Applied Medicine, Stanford University, USA
11/2020:
Dissertation (Dr. med.), University of Bochum, Germany
12/2018:
German Medical License Examination
2012 - 2018:
Medical school, University of Bochum, Germany
Clinical electives at University Eye Hospital Freiburg, Germany and
Waidspital Zurich, Switzerland
Professional experience
03/2024 - present:
Residency, Clinician Scientist, Ophthalmology, University Eye Hospital Freiburg, Germany
03/2022 - 02/2024:
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Ophthalmology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA
03/2019 - 02/2022:
Residency, Ophthalmology, University Eye Hospital Freiburg, Germany
01/2019 – 02/2019:
Retina Service, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, Prof. Richard Rosen, New York City, USA
Funding
08/2021:
Childrens’ Eye Cancer Foundation Germany
11/2020:
Volker Homann Foundation (with Prof. Lange)
Awards
10/2024:
Retina Research Award, German Society of Ophthalmology
06/2024:
Prof. Lommatzsch Research Award, German Retina Society
01/2023:
Research Award of the VitreoRetinal Surgery Foundation, USA
10/2022:
Helmholtz Research Award, German Society for Ophthalmology
10/2021:
Henning-Zügel-Stiftung Research Award, University of Freiburg
10/2021:
Two Best Lecture Awards, Annual Meeting German Society for Ophthalmology
Selected Publications
1.
Wolf J, Rasmussen DK, Sun YJ, Vu J, Wang E, Espinosa C, Bigini F, Chang RT, Montague AA, Tang PH, Mruthyunjaya P, Aghaeepour N, Dufour A, Bassuk AG, Mahajan VB. Liquid-biopsy proteomics combined with AI identifies cellular drivers of eye aging and disease in vivo. Cell, 2023, PMID: 37863056.
2.
Wolf J, Boneva S, Schlecht A, Lapp T, Auw-Haedrich C, Lagrèze W, Agostini H, Reinhard T, Schlunck G, Lange C. The Human Eye Transcriptome Atlas: A searchable comparative transcriptome database for healthy and diseased human eye tissue. Genomics. 2022 Feb 3:110286. doi: 10.1016/j.ygeno.2022.110286. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35124170.
3.
Wolf J, Schlecht A, Rosmus DD, Boneva S, Agostini H, Schlunck G, Wieghofer P, Lange C. Comparative transcriptome analysis of human and murine choroidal neovascularization identifies fibroblast growth factor inducible-14 as phylogenetically conserved mediator of neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Basis Dis. 2022 Jan 12;1868(4):166340. doi: 10.1016/j.bbadis.2022.166340. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35032596.
4.
Wolf J, Boneva S, Rosmus DD, Agostini H, Schlunck G, Wieghofer P, Schlecht A, Lange C. Deciphering the Molecular Signature of Human Hyalocytes in Relation to Other Innate Immune Cell Populations. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2022 Mar 2;63(3):9. doi: 10.1167/iovs.63.3.9. PMID: 35266958.
5.
Wolf J, Boneva S, Rosmus DD, Agostini H, Schlunck G, Wieghofer P, Schlecht A, Lange C. In-Depth Molecular Profiling Specifies Human Retinal Microglia Identity. Front Immunol. 2022 Mar 18;13:863158. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.863158. PMID: 35371110.
6.
Wolf J, Auw-Haedrich C, Schlecht A, Boneva S, Mittelviefhaus H, Lapp T, Agostini H, Reinhard T, Schlunck G, Lange CAK. Transcriptional characterization of conjunctival melanoma identifies the cellular tumor microenvironment and prognostic gene signatures. Sci Rep. 2020 Oct 12;10(1):17022. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-72864-0. PMID: 33046735.
7.
Schlecht A, Boneva S, Gruber M, Zhang P, Horres R, Bucher F, Auw-Haedrich C, Hansen L, Stahl A, Hilgendorf I, Agostini H, Wieghofer P, Schlunck G, Wolf J*, Lange CAK*. Transcriptomic Characterization of Human Choroidal Neovascular Membranes Identifies Calprotectin as a Novel Biomarker for Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Am J Pathol. 2020 Aug;190(8):1632-1642. doi: 10.1016/j.ajpath.2020.04.004. Epub 2020 Apr 24. PMID: 32339498. * contributed equally as senior authors.
8.
Boneva S, Schlecht A, Böhringer D, Mittelviefhaus H, Reinhard T, Agostini H, Auw-Haedrich C, Schlunck G, Wolf J*, Lange C*. 3' MACE RNA-sequencing allows for transcriptome profiling in human tissue samples after long-term storage. Lab Invest. 2020 May 28. doi: 10.1038/s41374-020-0446-z. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 32467590. * contributed equally as senior authors.
9.
Lange C, Wolf J, Auw-Haedrich C, Schlecht A, Boneva S, Lapp T, Horres R, Agostini H, Martin G, Reinhard T, Schlunck G. Expression of the COVID-19 receptor ACE2 in the human conjunctiva. J Med Virol. 2020 May 6:10.1002/jmv.25981. doi: 10.1002/jmv.25981. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 32374427.
10.
Laich Y, Wolf J, Hajdu RI, Schlecht A, Bucher F, Pauleikhoff L, Busch M, Martin G, Faatz H, Killmer S, Bengsch B, Stahl A, Lommatzsch A, Schlunck G, Agostini H, Boneva S, Lange C. Single-Cell Protein and Transcriptional Characterization of Epiretinal Membranes From Patients With Proliferative Vitreoretinopathy. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2022 May 2;63(5):17. doi: 10.1167/iovs.63.5.17. PMID: 35579905.
Number of publications:
46
First or last authorships:
21
Citations (Google Scholar):
814
h-index (Google Scholar):
14
Cumulative Impact Factor (JCR):
261.4
Further qualifications
02/2021:
Good Clinical Practice (GCP) course
09/2019:
Course on laboratory animal science (FELASA B)
12/2017 - 01/2019:
Professional Certificate Program Data Science, Harvard University, Professional certificate earned on edx.
05/2018 - 07/2018:
Specialization Mastering Software Development in R, Johns Hopkins University, certificate earned on Coursera.
03/2018:
Writing in the Sciences, Stanford University, Certificate earned on Coursera.