Prof. Dr. Janine Kirstein
Group Leader
Our research aims to understand how molecular chaperones and proteolytic pathways regulate the folding landscape of neurodegenerative disease associated amyloid proteins such as HTT, Abeta and Tau in vitro and in vivo in C. elegans with the progression of aging.
The long-term health is inextricably linked to protein quality control. An imbalance in protein homeostasis (proteostasis) can result in severe molecular damage to the cell, leading to tissue pathology and enhanced susceptibility to diseases such as metabolic diseases and neurodegeneration, but also cancer and immunodeficiency.
Our group aims to uncover the complex mechanisms of the proteostasis network with aging, strategies to cope with protein aggregates and its associated pathologies.
The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding seven new research groups (FOR) with a total of €33 million. One of these, DFG-FOR 5872, is dedicated to the role of molecular chaperones in the regulation of misfolded proteins in cellular condensates. The aim is to better understand the development of age-related neurodegenerative diseases and to develop new therapeutic approaches. The DFG research group is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Janine Kirstein at the Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) in Jena.
Spotlight on the FLI Team (1): Priscila Yumi Tanaka Shibao (33), Research Group Kirstein
Prof. Dr. Janine Kirstein will head a new research group on the biochemistry of aging at the FLI next year. The position comes with a W3 professorship at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, for which Kirstein has accepted the call.
