I am a stem cell biologist studying hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), viral vectors, nanoparticles (NPs), and gene therapy/editing. I graduated in cell biology in 2008 at the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany and received my PhD (with honors – summa cum laude) in stem cell biology from the University of Essen-Duisburg in Germany in 2014. I am an acting instructor in the workgroup of Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem and lead two Kiem Lab Core facilities (Gates Foundation/Kiem Lab Humanized Mouse Core and Retroviral Integration Site [RIS] Core). I supervise and manage 15 employees including two postdoctoral research fellows, three graduate students, one undergraduate, four research technicians, three animal technicians, and two bioinformaticians.

My current research focuses on the development of novel HSC-targeted delivery tools for ex vivo and in vivo gene therapy using surface engineered viral vectors to highly specifically target CD90+ HSCs (Berckmueller et al. 2023, Molecular Therapy). I am specifically focused on designing and developing novel delivery methods to allow the administration of gene therapy agents directly in the patient, increase the portability, enhance the safety, as well as lower the costs to make this currently prohibitively expensive treatment strategy available to millions of patients worldwide.