Fields of Research

CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE

We are studying the mechanism of kidney injury and repair with the ultimative goal to find new treatments for the vast and growing patient population suffering from chronic kidney disease (CKD).

HEART FAILURE

Chronic heart failure is the leading hospital discharge diagnose and the killer of patients with chronic kidney disease. We are studying key signaling pathways between pericytes, cardiomyocytes and endothelial cells to develop novel therapeutics in heart failure and uremic cardiomyopathy.

FIBROSIS

Fibrosis has been estimated to be involved in almost 50% of all deaths in the developed world. We are studying fibrosis of heart, kidney, lung, vasculature and bone-marrow with the goal to develop novel targeted therapeutics.

VASCULAR DISEASE

We are performing state of the art genetic fate tracing and omics research to understand the key cellular and molecular events in athero- and arteriosclerosis with a special focus on vulnerable patients with chronic kidney disease and / or diabetes.

CRISPR/CAS9 GENE EDITING

We use in vitro and in vivo CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to validate pathways and therapeutic targets.

3D CELL-CULTURE MODELING & STEM CELLS

We are working with 3D cell culture models of human and mouse cells for disease modeling, target validation and compound screening.

IN VIVO STUDIES & TRANSLATION

We are using various transgenic mouse models for disease modeling and genetic fate tracing and validate findings in human tissue and serum.

GENOMICS & PROTEOMICS

We are performing various single cell genomic technologies and proteomics to understand cell-fate in disease, heterogeneity and cross-talk with the ultimate goal to identify novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets.