Insect olfaction
Prof. Emeritus Dr. Karl-Ernst Kaissling passed away on April 25, 2026.
He came to Seewiesen in 1966 as a research assistant in Dieter Schneider’s department. In 1972, he was appointed a research associate of the Max Planck Society and expanded the department as head of a research group on “Insect Olfaction” until 2001. His field of research focused in particular on stimulus-to-action conversion in olfactory cells.
In 1985, Schneider ended his active tenure as director early at his own request, and Karl-Ernst Kaissling was appointed acting head of his department until its dissolution in 1991.
In 2001, Kaissling ended his active tenure and continued to lead his group for another two years as an emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology. Until the very end, he remained a welcome guest at the institute, attending lectures or celebrations at the Birkenhaus.
We greatly appreciated him and his tremendous dedication to the institute, its staff, and his work. We will honor his memory.
External chemical signals guide the behaviour of organisms from bacteria to humans. We have chosen insects as model animals to investigate the sense of olfaction at various levels of organization; these include the fine structure and development of the olfactory organs, the molecular events involved in stimulus transduction, the receptor cell function, and the chemically controlled behaviour of insects.
We employ a great variety of methods including electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry, biochemistry, electrophysiology, mathematical modeling of electrical and chemical networks, and behavioural observations. Among the species of interest are agricultural pest insects and carriers of diseases (malaria), as well as fruit flies (Drosophila) for genetic analyses.
The group was part of the MPI für Verhaltensphysiologie (until 2003) and stood in the tradition of the founder of physiology of insect olfaction, Dietrich Schneider (30.7.1919 - 10.6.2008), former director and emeritus at our institute.
Dr. rer. nat., apl. Prof. Karl-Ernst Kaissling
Studied Zoology, Biochemistry and Physics at the Universities of Tübingen, Vienna and Munich, PhD in 1962, since 1972 Scientific member of the Max-Planck-Society and leader of a research group, since 1978 apl. Prof. at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, since 2003 Emeritus.
Members of the former research group
Dr. rer. nat. Elke Hartlieb
Dr. rer. nat., Priv. Doz. Thomas A. Keil (keil@biochem.mpg.de)
Dr. rer. nat. Rosario Maida (rosario.maida@gmx.de)
Dr. rer. nat. Corina Oldenburg (dr.c.oldenburg@web.de)
Dr. rer. nat. Blanka Pophof (BPophof@bfs.de)
Dr. rer. nat., apl. Prof. Rudolf Alexander Steinbrecht (Steinbrecht@orn.mpg.de)
Dr. rer. nat. Gunde Ziegelberger (gziegelberger@BFS.de)