Jochen Guck (1973 – 2025)

We are deeply saddened to receive the news that Professor Jochen Guck, a former Reader in Biophysics at the Cavendish, has passed away suddenly.

Jochen received his PhD in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001. After being a group leader at the University of Leipzig, he joined the Cavendish Laboratory as a Lecturer in 2007 and was promoted to Reader in 2009.

In 2012 he left the Cavendish to take up a Professorship of Cellular Machines at the Biotechnology Center of the Technische Universität Dresden.  From October 2018 he was a Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin in Erlangen, Germany, and since August 2020 he was also Professor of Biological Optomechanics in the Physics Department of the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Jochen was an expert in optics and imaging. He worked on a range of biophysical questions, from cell mechanics to optics in the retina, and the effect of substrates on growth of various types of biological tissues. He authored over 145 peer-reviewed publications and six patents, with his research recognised by several awards, amongst them the Cozzarelli Award by the National Academy of Sciences (USA) in 2008, the Paterson Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics (UK) in 2011 and an Alexander-von-Humboldt Professorship in 2012 and the 2024 Greve Prize from the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Jochen was a great contributor to our Department from teaching to research. He played an important role in designing the Physics of Medicine (PoM) building laboratories, and establishing the physics of life activity in the Cavendish. His own enthusiasm for science was contagious and he positively inspired a large number of early careers towards exciting new directions. He had the unique talent of keeping the big picture in focus with a calm approach which brought people together.

He will be deeply missed by his former colleagues and friends here at the Cavendish Laboratory, and we send our sincere condolences to his family.