# Werner Goebel
**Werner Goebel** (born 19 September 1939 in Siemianowice Śląskie, Upper Silesia) was a German microbiologist who held the chair of microbiology at the [University of Würzburg](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-wurzburg) from 1974 to 2007 and became one of the leading figures in the molecular genetics of *Listeria monocytogenes*, the bacterium that causes listeriosis.[1](https://www.uni-marburg.de/archive/news/2006-6-1-emil-von-behring-preis-an-zwei-deutsche-mikrobiologen.html) His laboratory identified and characterized the bacterium's principal virulence factors, including the hemolysin gene *hly* (listeriolysin O) and its positive regulator PrfA, and he led the German contribution to the complete sequencing of the *L. monocytogenes* genome announced in 2000.[2](https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.14.3.584-640.2001) • [3](https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.87.21.8336) • [4](https://idw-online.de/en/news19859)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Signature discovery | *hly* (listeriolysin O), the first *Listeria* virulence gene to be identified and sequenced, and the regulator PrfA[2](https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.14.3.584-640.2001) • [3](https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.87.21.8336) |
| Genome work | Complete sequencing of the *L. monocytogenes* genome, announced 12 April 2000, in an EU consortium of ten groups from France, Spain, and Germany[4](https://idw-online.de/en/news19859) |
| Honors | Robert Koch Prize 1983; ASM Lecture Award 1984; Leopoldina member since 1988; Emil von Behring Prize 2006; Leopoldina Medal of Merit 2007[5](https://www.leopoldina.org/en/members/member-list/detail/werner-goebel) • [1](https://www.uni-marburg.de/archive/news/2006-6-1-emil-von-behring-preis-an-zwei-deutsche-mikrobiologen.html) |
## Early life and education
Goebel studied chemistry at the [University of Tübingen](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-tubingen) from 1958 to 1963 and received his doctorate in 1965.
## Career and academic positions
Later DFG funding records list his address as the Max-von-Pettenkofer-Institut für Hygiene und Medizinische Mikrobiologie of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, indicating an affiliation in Munich in the later phase of his funded work.[6](https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/person/5539?contrast=0)
## Scientific contributions: Listeria virulence, listeriolysin O, and PrfA
**The hemolysin gene.** Studies by the Würzburg group and others led between 1986 and 1989 to the discovery of the hemolysin gene *hly*, the first virulence determinant to be identified and sequenced in *Listeria* species. The hemolysin, listeriolysin O, plays the key role in escape from destruction inside phagosomes, the prerequisite for intracellular bacterial proliferation.[2](https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.14.3.584-640.2001) A 1989 paper from the Institut für Genetik und Mikrobiologie der Universität Würzburg, with Martin Leimeister-Wächter and Trinad Chakraborty among the authors, cloned the listeriolysin gene from a weakly hemolytic but virulent *L. monocytogenes* strain in *Escherichia coli* K-12.[7](https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC313454) The *hly* gene maps to a 9-kb chromosomal virulence gene cluster involved in functions essential to intracellular survival, and in the same period the internalin locus *inlAB*, encoding the first invasin described in a gram-positive bacterium, was identified and characterized.[2](https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.14.3.584-640.2001)
**The regulator PrfA.** In 1990 Goebel, with Leimeister-Wächter, Haffner, Domann, and Chakraborty, published in *PNAS* the identification of a gene that positively regulates expression of listeriolysin, the major virulence factor of *L. monocytogenes* (*PNAS* 87(21):8336–8340).[3](https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.87.21.8336) The genetic evidence came from the mutant strain SLCC53, which is nonhemolytic and avirulent, and carries a 450-base-pair deletion located approximately 1,500 base pairs upstream of the listeriolysin gene.[8](https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC54950) This regulator, PrfA, is the central transcriptional activator for the most important virulence genes of *L. monocytogenes* and is itself controlled in its synthesis and activity in complex ways.[9](https://gepris.dfg.de/project/158069482)
**PrfA modulation by carbon metabolism.** A DFG project running from 1998 to 2006, subproject B 01 of SFB 479, investigated how PrfA activity is modulated by PTS permeases, the sugar-transport systems of the bacterium. The work found that PrfA activity is strongly inhibited by glucose and other PTS substrates, and it disproved the hypothesized model in which modulation depended on the phosphorylation state of EIIA.[9](https://gepris.dfg.de/project/158069482) • [11](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5587384/) The project used 13C-isotopologue metabolic analysis in primary murine bone-marrow macrophages and the J774 macrophage cell line to compare host-cell carbon metabolism during infection, and it produced reviews with his collaborators, including Götz, Eylert, Eisenreich, and Goebel, "Carbon metabolism of intracellular bacterial pathogens and possible links to virulence," *Nature Reviews Microbiology* 8:401–412 (2010).[9](https://gepris.dfg.de/project/158069482)
Goebel also co-authored the 2001 review "Listeria Pathogenesis and Molecular Virulence Determinants" in *Clinical Microbiology Reviews*.[2](https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.14.3.584-640.2001)
## Genome sequencing and patho-biotechnology
On 12 April 2000, at a press conference at the "Genom 2000" congress in Paris, it was announced that the entire genome of *L. monocytogenes* had been deciphered, with scientists of the Würzburg Biozentrum including Goebel's group among the contributors. The work was carried out by an EU-funded consortium of ten research groups from France, Spain, and Germany, funded since 1998, and the genome comprises about 3,000 genes.[4](https://idw-online.de/en/news19859) The University of Marburg's 2006 prize announcement credits Goebel as a key initiator of the German genome network and states that in an international consortium he achieved the complete sequencing of the *Listeria* genome.[1](https://www.uni-marburg.de/archive/news/2006-6-1-emil-von-behring-preis-an-zwei-deutsche-mikrobiologen.html)
The same announcement describes the applied line of his later work: the "Patho-Biotechnologie" uses the ability of *L. monocytogenes* to infect cells of the immune system to develop novel live vaccines, a development in which Goebel was substantially involved, and he contributed to the BMBF competence network "PathoGenoMik" for pathogen genome research.[1](https://www.uni-marburg.de/archive/news/2006-6-1-emil-von-behring-preis-an-zwei-deutsche-mikrobiologen.html) The Würzburg groups of Goebel, Jürgen Kreft, and Michael Kuhn received 500,000 DM over three years for the follow-up EU project REALIS on *Listeria* gene function.[4](https://idw-online.de/en/news19859)
## By the numbers
On the funding side, the DFG record documents individual projects, including the 1998–2006 SFB 479 subproject on PrfA regulation.[9](https://gepris.dfg.de/project/158069482)
## Students, collaborators, and the Würzburg school
The 1989 listeriolysin cloning paper and the 1990 *PNAS* regulator paper carry the names of Leimeister-Wächter and Chakraborty alongside Goebel's.[7](https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC313454) • [3](https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.87.21.8336) Jürgen Kreft and Michael Kuhn led neighboring groups at the same chair in the genome-sequencing era.[4](https://idw-online.de/en/news19859) Later collaborators named in his ORCID record include Wolfgang Eisenreich, Thomas Rudel, and Jürgen Heesemann, with works such as "Differential regulation of the virulence genes of *Listeria monocytogenes* by the transcriptional activator PrfA" and studies of the carbon substrates used by *L. monocytogenes* in J774A.1 macrophages.[10](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4851-2083)
## Honors and recognition
Goebel was elected to the [German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina](https://www.edgepedia.org/german-national-academy-of-sciences-leopoldina) in 1988, in the Section Microbiology and [Immunology](https://www.edgepedia.org/immunology), with his location listed as München.[5](https://www.leopoldina.org/en/members/member-list/detail/werner-goebel) On 1 June 2006 he received the Emil von Behring Prize of the City of Marburg together with the microbiologist Gerhard Gottschalk; the university release describes him as one of the doyens of bacterial pathogenesis research worldwide.[1](https://www.uni-marburg.de/archive/news/2006-6-1-emil-von-behring-preis-an-zwei-deutsche-mikrobiologen.html)
## References
1. [Emil von Behring-Preis an zwei deutsche Mikrobiologen, Universität Marburg, 1 June 2006](https://www.uni-marburg.de/archive/news/2006-6-1-emil-von-behring-preis-an-zwei-deutsche-mikrobiologen.html)
2. [Listeria Pathogenesis and Molecular Virulence Determinants, Clinical Microbiology Reviews (2001)](https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.14.3.584-640.2001)
3. [Identification of a gene that positively regulates expression of listeriolysin, the major virulence factor of Listeria monocytogenes, PNAS 87(21):8336–8340 (1990)](https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.87.21.8336)
4. [Erbgut der Listeria-Bakterien entschlüsselt, IDW, 12 April 2000](https://idw-online.de/en/news19859)
5. [Prof. Dr. Werner Goebel, Leopoldina member registry](https://www.leopoldina.org/en/members/member-list/detail/werner-goebel)
6. [Professor Dr. Werner Goebel, DFG GEPRIS](https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/person/5539?contrast=0)
7. [Detection of listeriolysin, the thiol-dependent hemolysin, in Listeria monocytogenes, L. ivanovii, and L. seeligeri, Infection and Immunity (1989)](https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC313454)
8. [Europe PMC record of the 1990 PNAS article](https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC54950)
9. [Modulation der Aktivität des Virulenzregulators PrfA von L. monocytogenes durch PTS-Permeasen, DFG GEPRIS project 158069482](https://gepris.dfg.de/project/158069482)
10. [Werner Goebel, ORCID 0000-0003-4851-2083](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4851-2083)
11. [pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5587384/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Life and health › Life and health scientists › Life scientists › Researchers in immunology, microbiology, and virology › Bacteriology and bacterial pathogenesis*
*Initially written Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026*
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