Parting and future CEO of abberior instruments: Dr. Gerald Donnert (top) und Dr. Thorsten Staudt

Göttingen, Germany — abberior instruments GmbH CEO Dr. Gerald Donnert will hand over his position to Dr. Thorsten Staudt on January 1, 2025.

“I am delighted to be returning to microscopy, to further develop abberior instruments as a team and to unlock its enormous potential,” says Staudt, who currently heads the global Center of Excellence Metal Systems Applications at BASF. He will be relocating to Göttingen for his new role.

“Thorsten Staudt did his PhD on STED microscopy and has all the prerequisites to continue Gerald Donnert’s very successful work at abberior instruments,” emphasizes Nobel laureate Prof. Dr. Stefan Hell, from whose Department at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen abberior instruments and its sister company abberior were spun off.

After completing his PhD in Hell’s group in Heidelberg, chemist Staudt moved to BASF in 2010, where he held various positions in R&D, Business Development, Sales and Marketing, Business Management, and Operations.

Donnert co-founded the companies abberior instruments and abberior with colleagues 13 and 14 years ago, respectively, and has managed their businesses jointly ever since. As from 2025, he will focus on the management of abberior GmbH and establish a new line of business, but he will remain with abberior instruments as a consultant and shareholder.

About abberior instruments and abberior

Since their foundation, both companies have followed the credo of developing and offering the best products for the highest possible microscopic resolution, for and together with scientists worldwide. And this will remain the companies’ guiding principle also in the future.

abberior instruments and abberior are leading innovators, developers, and manufacturers of modern superresolution STED and MINFLUX microscopes and the corresponding fluorescent dyes that enable unique imaging and applications in cell and molecular biology. Since their foundation, both companies have followed the credo of developing and offering the best products for the highest possible microscopic resolution, for and together with scientists worldwide. This will remain the guiding principle of the companies also in the future.

Last year, abberior instruments and abberior moved into their new headquarters at the North Campus of the University of Göttingen.

abberior instruments is a technology leader in light microscopy with subsidiaries in the United States and China. Without external investors, the company has developed from a start-up to a medium-sized enterprise with over 120 employees. The microscopes developed by abberior instruments achieve record optical resolutions of up to one nanometer in biological samples and are in demand worldwide.

abberior develops and distributes dyes, molecular probes, and consumables for light microscopy applications worldwide. Currently, abberior is developing a new business segment: the company is establishing high-resolution microscopy assays for the screening of active pharmaceutical compounds as well as diagnostic and biotechnological procedures, offered as a service for the pharmaceutical industry in form of a contract research organization (CRO).