Günther K.H. Zupanc

Zupanc was among the founding faculty of the International University Bremen (now Jacobs University Bremen), a unique private international university that combines features of the European Higher Education systems with the U.S. American Higher Education system. He played a leading role in defining and establishing the biology degree program at this institution. In 2009, this program received the top ranking of all universities evaluated by the Center for Higher Education Development (CHE). Zupanc has also published extensively on history of science, as well as on science policy issues, including biology teaching, online education, internationalization of higher education, integration of undergraduate students into research, student fellowships, student debt, privatization of higher education, research assessment, university rankings, ethics of part-time teaching contracts, and collaboration in the competitive world of science. Günther Zupanc is frequently sought as a speaker and advisor on science and higher education policy.

Zupanc was Editor of the Journal of Zoology (2007–11), and he has been Editor of the Journal of Comparative Physiology A since 2008. He has also edited special issues of several scientific journals, including Adult Neurogenesis: A Comparative Approach for Brain, Behavior and Evolution, Electric Fish: Model Systems for Neurobiology and Integrative and Comparative Neurobiology: Papers in Memoriam of Theodore H. Bullock (1915-2005) for Journal of Comparative Physiology A, Towards a Comparative Understanding of Adult Neurogenesis (jointly with Luca Bonfanti and Ferdinando Rossi) for European Journal of Neuroscience, and Adult Neural Stem Cells in Development, Regeneration, and Aging (jointly with James Monaghan and David L. Stocum) for Developmental Neurobiology. Zupanc served on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the journals Brain, Behavior and Evolution, Journal of Comparative Physiology A, and Journal of Neurorestoratology. He is currently a member of the Editorial Boards of Regenerative Medicine and Developmental Neurobiology.

Günther Zupanc was born in Augsburg in (then) West-Germany. He graduated in Biology and Physics from the University of Regensburg (Germany) with degrees equivalent to Bachelor’s and master's degrees. He received his Ph.D. in Neurosciences from the University of California, San Diego (1990), and he was awarded the habilitation (Dr. rer. nat. habil.) in Animal Physiology from the University of Tübingen (Germany) (1995).

Since the early 1990s, Zupanc’s research group has pioneered the study of adult neurogenesis (the generation of new neurons in the adult central nervous system) in teleosts. He and his wife Marianne M. Zupanc introduced labeling of mitotic cells with 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine (BrdU) to research on adult neurogenesis. Since then, this method has been used by numerous investigators working in this area. His research group performed the first complete mapping of proliferation zones in the adult brain of any vertebrate species (1995), and he and his associates introduced zebrafish (2005) and tilapia (2012) as model systems to study adult neurogenesis. To provide an explanation for the biological function of adult neurogenesis, he formulated the 'matching hypothesis.' According to this hypothesis, neurogenesis in the adult central nervous system is the result of the continuous generation of new muscle fibers and sensory receptor cells in the periphery. To maintain a constant ratio between the peripheral motor and sensory elements on the one side, and the central elements on the other, any numerical change in the periphery prompts a corresponding numerical alteration (production or loss of neurons) in the central nervous system.

Günther Zupanc was Research Assistant and Research Scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California (1987–92), Junior Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany (1992–97), Senior Lecturer (equivalent to Associate Professor) at the University of Manchester, U.K. (1997–2002), and Professor at the International University Bremen (now Jacobs University Bremen) (2002–09). Since 2009 he has been Professor at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, where he also served as Chair of the Department of Biology (2009–12). Zupanc was Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada (1994–97) and Visiting Scholar at the University of California, San Diego, the University of Chicago, the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Scripps Research Institute, Tufts University, and Jacobs University Bremen.

Günther K.H. Zupanc published his first book, Fische und ihr Verhalten (1982), while he was still an undergraduate student. This book appeared subsequently in an English edition under the title Fish and Their Behavior and became a bestseller. Zupanc is Editor of Praktische Verhaltensbiologie (1988), a laboratory manual used widely in German-speaking countries in biology education. His book Behavioral Neurobiology: An Integrative Approach (2004; third edition: 2019) is the most frequently adopted text in teaching behavioral neurobiology classes in the world. In a review by the journal Integrative and Comparative Biology, it has been praised as “a milestone in the neuroethological literature”.

Before enrolling in college, Zupanc worked as a journalist for the Münchner Merkur, a major daily newspaper in Munich, Germany, where he specialized in science writing. He also published numerous science articles in other newspapers and magazines. For one of his articles, he was awarded first prize in the contest Reporter der Wissenschaft as Germany’s best young science writer in 1980.

Günther K.H. Zupanc (born 20 October 1958) is a neurobiologist, researcher, university teacher, book author, journal editor, and educational reformer. He is a Professor in the Department of Biology at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.