Friederike Zunke, PhD

Professor Friederike Zunke obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at the University of Kiel (Kiel, Germany) and a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences at the St. George’s University (London, UK). She received a PhD from the Biochemical Department at the University of Kiel in 2015 for work focusing on intracellular mechanisms and the role of lysosomal dysfunction in neurodegeneration. She continued to work on lysosomal pathways and alpha-synuclein aggregation processes during her postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurology at the Northwestern University in Chicago (USA). In 2016, she began to work as an independent group leader in the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Kiel (Germany), and in 2020 she was appointed as Professor for Translational Neurosciences in the Department of Molecular Neurology at the University Hospital Erlangen (Universitätsklinikum Erlangen)/ FAU Erlangen (Germany). She and her group continue to work on molecular and structural mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease by applying biochemical, cellular and structural analyzes. Further, translational approaches targeting alpha-synuclein aggreation and lysosomal function are in the focus of her work.