Expertise and creativity
The Research Group for Healthy Ageing
In Kiel, the members of the Research Group for Healthy Aging of the Institute for Clinical Molecular Biology are researching the ageing process in humans.
Biologists with various areas of expertise, medical specialists, lab technicians, sociologists and bioinformaticians are investigating the genetic causes of ageing while also documenting the social and economic living conditions of the study participants.
Stefan Schreiber is the Dean of the Medical Faculty at the Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel and the director of the Institute for Clinical Molecular Biology. In 2000, apart from developing systematic research on ageing he initiated the largest national bioank, popgen. As the spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence "Inflammation at Interfaces", Stefan Schreiber’s area of expertise revolves around the genetic causes of inflammatory diseases. For his scientific work, he has received multiple awards.
Almut Nebel is the chief scientist of the research group and develops the studies on longevity. The biologist, who previously worked at the Universities of Dunedin/New Zealand, Jerusalem and Johannesburg, specialises on molecular human genetics.
Susanna Nikolaus is the medical project leader of the research group. She is responsible for the phenotyping and clinical classification of the study participants. As a senior physician at the 1st Medical Department of the university hospital, Susanna Nikolaus is an expert on the chronic inflammatory bowel diseases Crohn's Disease and ulcerative colitis.
The biologist Friederike Flachsbart is the research fellow of the research group. As a postdoc, she works on the identification of genes which influence the healthy ageing process.
Ilona Urbach is a medical technician at the institute. For the Research Group for Healthy Ageing, she extracts the genetic material from the blood samples of the study participants.
Liljana Gentschew, Carolin Däumer, Nandini Badarinarayan and Geetha Venkatesh (FLTR) are PhD students in the Research Group for Healthy Ageing. They specialise in molecular human genetics, biomathematics and bioinformatics. They are looking for genetic variants in specific regions of the human genome associated with longevity.
