CZS NEXUS Research Group Leader „Immunometabolism and Mental Health“
Alexander Behnke studied psychology with a minor in industrial engineering at TU Dresden (2008–2015) and Italian at Ca’Foscari Università of Venice (2014–2015). He was awarded a university scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (2009–2015). He worked as a student research assistant (2010–2015) and research associate (2015–2016) at the Personality & Individual Differences Department (Prof. Alexander Strobel), TU Dresden.
In 2016, Dr. Behnke began his doctoral studies at the Clinical & Biological Psychology Department at Ulm University (Prof. Iris-Tatjana Kolassa). His dissertation about occupational trauma sequelae in the Emergency Medical Services was supported by a PhD scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. He completed his PhD in May 2021 with highest distinction (summa cum laude), and his thesis was awarded the Clemens Gabriel Foundation Dissertation Award.
Dr. Behnke’s current research focuses on immunometabolic pathomechanisms in mental health disorders such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As PI of several interdisciplinary projects, he is investigating the interplay between endocrine stress signaling, inflammatory activity, and cellular energy production in MDD and PTSD using various methodology.
In 2024, Dr. Behnke was awarded fellowships from the U.S. Fulbright Commission and the G.A.-Lienert Foundation to pursue postdoctoral research in Prof. Martin Picard’s Mitochondrial Psychobiology Laboratory at Columbia University, New York. Since 2025, Dr. Behnke leads the CZS NEXUS Research Group “Immunometabolism and Mental Health” at Ulm University. The Carl Zeiss Foundation is funding this group with about 1.5 million euros from March 2025 to February 2031.