Dr. Kottmann is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Psychiatry, the Genome Center and the Center for Motor Neuron Biology and Disease of Columbia University and the Research Foundation of Mental Hygiene.

He studied molecular immunology under George Koehler at the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology in Freiburg, Germany, where he received his PhD in 1991. He received post doctoral training in developmental neurobiology at the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior of Columbia University under the mentorship of Thomas M Jessell. From 1999 to 2003 he was the Vice President of Research of the biotech company PsychoGenics, Inc. in New York.

Dr. Kottmann’s laboratory employs a variety of molecular, pharmacological, and genetic loss and gain of function strategies in mice to study mechanisms of regulation of structural plasticity in the adult central nervous system (CNS). In particular, he is interested in how physiological cell stress responses in neurons cause orchestrated structural adaptations to insults to the CNS. His laboratory is focused on three experimental paradigms: (1) How does physiological cell stress in dopaminergic neurons of the mesencephalon shape the structure of the basal ganglia? (2) How does muscle injury alter spinal motor neuron morphology and physiology? (3) Can neurons that undergo cell stress responses signal to and instruct adult stem cells to produce cell identities of current physiological need? Experimental results from his laboratory might lead to novel pharmacological strategies for the maintenance of vulnerable neurons in disease.