Johannes Krause

Johannes Krause is a German paleogeneticist known for pioneering work in ancient DNA and the molecular analysis of past human and pathogen populations. He has led research that intersected with institutions and figures across Europe and North America, influencing fields linked to archaeology, paleontology, and genomics. His career ties to several prominent laboratories and collaborative projects have produced high-impact findings reshaping views on human migration, disease history, and extinct species.

Early life and education

Born in Germany, he studied at the University of Tübingen and earned further training at the Humboldt University of Berlin and affiliated institutes, connecting with scholars from the Max Planck Society, Leipzig University, and research groups in Berlin. During his doctoral and postdoctoral period he worked alongside researchers associated with the European Research Council, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and laboratories linked to the Natural History Museum, London and the Smithsonian Institution. His early mentorship network included collaborators from the German Research Foundation, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford.

Career and positions

He held positions at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and later assumed leadership roles at the Daily Life of research centers and departments connected to the Technical University of Munich and international consortia. His appointments involved collaborations with teams at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the University of Copenhagen, and the Karolinska Institute, as well as partnership projects with the National Institutes of Health and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. He has participated in editorial and advisory roles for journals and funding bodies including the Nature Research family, the Science community, and grant panels associated with the European Commission.

Research contributions and notable discoveries

He contributed to reconstructing genomes from ancient humans and pathogens, producing insights that connected to research on Neanderthal, Denisovan interactions, and migrations across Eurasia, with implications for studies involving the Yamnaya culture, the Bell Beaker culture, and population events linked to the Bronze Age. His pathogen palaeogenetics work retrieved ancient genomes of Yersinia pestis, informing debates about Black Death pandemics, the Justinianic Plague, and patterns related to historical outbreaks studied by scholars at the Wellcome Trust, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and World Health Organization. He also sequenced DNA from extinct fauna, contributing to discussions about woolly mammoth demography, the Neolithic Revolution, and human-animal interactions investigated by teams at the Natural History Museum, Paris and the American Museum of Natural History. Collaborations with archaeologists from the University of Vienna, the Institute of Archaeology (UCL), and the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities supported multidisciplinary studies combining radiocarbon dating from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit and genomic inference methods developed alongside researchers at the Broad Institute and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Awards and honors

He received recognition from organizations including the European Research Council and prizes associated with the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and awards from scientific publishers such as Nature. His work has been acknowledged by institutions like the Royal Society through collaborative fellowships and by foundations connected to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Max Planck Society.

Selected publications

- Paper on ancient European population dynamics involving collaborators from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the University of Tübingen, and the University of Cambridge. - Study reconstructing historic Yersinia pestis genomes with coauthors from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the Robert Koch Institute. - Research on extinct megafauna genetics with partners at the Natural History Museum, London and the American Museum of Natural History. - Multidisciplinary report integrating radiocarbon dating from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit and genomic analyses from the Broad Institute.

Category:German scientists Category:Paleogeneticists