Principle Investigators

Thomas Gasser is Professor of Neurology and director of the Department for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the HIH and the University Hospital for Neurology and heads the Parkinson’s Genetics group at the HIH and the DZNE Tübingen. He has led one of the teams discovering the LRRK2 gene as the most common cause for autosomal dominantly inherited PD and has, together with collaborators, pioneered GWA studies in PD.

Philipp Kahle is head of the Functional Neurogenetics group at the HIH/DZNE Tübingen. Research aims at the understanding of neuropathological and epigenetics mechanisms of a-synuclein as well as mitochondrial quality control mechanisms regulated by recessive PD genes. More information

Kathrin Brockmann heads the Parkinson’s disease outpatient unit at the Department of Neurology and is affiliated with the Integrated Clinical and Research Unit (ICRU) of the DZNE Tübingen. Her team focuses on patient stratification according to imaging patterns, genetic architecture and biomarkers as one of the major prerequisites to develop  pathway-specific and milestone-related therapies.

Julia Fitzgerald is a junior group leader at The Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Tübingen working on the biological processes underlying neuronal cell death in Parkinson’s disease. Using genetic models and patient derived cells, the group focus on biochemical signaling and have a long standing specialism in mitochondria and the role of mitochondrial proteins in Parkinson’s disease.

Peter Heutink is head of the Genome Biology of Neurodegeneration group and speaker of the DZNE-Tubingen. His team has identified genes causing inherited PD and risk loci for sporadic PD. His current interest focusses on the investigation of the molecular effects of the large number of risk genes identified for both familial and sporadic PD using high throughput genomic, bioinformatic and cellomic methods in induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cell models.

Michela Deleidi is a Helmholtz group leader at the DZNE-Tübingen. Her team works on the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration, with a special emphasis on the role of inflammation in Parkinson's disease. More information 

Inga Liepelt is a neuropsychologist. As head of the Integrated Clinical and Research Unit (ICRU) of the DZNE Tübingen, she is responsible for a seemless workflow in numerous clinical trials. She also runs studies on cognitive and behavioural interventions in PD.

Christian Johannes Gloeckner is group leader at the DZNE-Tübingen. His team is working on the functional analysis of the PD-associated proteins. The current focus of the work is on the functional analysis of LRRK2 by systematic mapping of protein-interaction networks, by biochemical methods as well as by structural modelling. More information