Boris Pfander
Since 2020, Boris Pfander is full professor at the medical faculty of the university of Cologne and the Institute for Genome Stability in Ageing and Diseases (IGSAD) at the CECAD Research Centre of the University of Cologne. Boris leads the research group Genome Maintenance Mechanisms in Health and Disease at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Boris conducted his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich and his postdoctoral research as HFSP, CRUK and EMBO fellow at CRUKs London Research Institute in London, UK. From 2010 he has led the independent research group DNA replication and genome integrity at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich.
Boris is board member of the German Society for DNA Repair (DGDR). He was awarded the Otto-Hahn Medal and the Otto-Hahn Award. Boris research focuses on cellular controls of genome integrity and aims to address the following questions:
- How are cellular DNA repair decisions made? Can DNA repair decisions be controlled from the outside in order to improve genome editing technology?
- What are the molecular causes of replication stress that drive cancer formation after oncogene activation?
- What is the contribution of replication stress to the ageing process? What are markers of DNA damage that allow to quantify the exposure of human individuals to sources of DNA damage such as radiation?
- How are genome maintenance mechanisms altered during ageing? How is their proteostasis controlled?
