Dr. Sofia Meyer zu Reckendorf

Dr. Sofia Meyer zu Reckendorf is a postdoctoral research fellow in the working group of Prof. Dr. Bernd Knöll in the institute of Physiological Chemistry (head: Prof. Dr. Thomas Wirth). Her research field focuses on regeneration of injured peripheral nerves.

Peripheral nerve injury usually affects young adult patients. Although animal experiments show that peripheral nerves have the intrinsic capacity to regenerate, functional regeneration in humans is often very limited. This results permanent impaired motoric and sensory functions of the affected extremities as well as chronic pain. In recent years, Sofia has established an ex vivo system to investigate regeneration associated processes in human and murine nerves. Thereby, she identified that regulation of the lipid metabolism (regulated mainly by the transcription factor PPARg) and of bioactive lipids (e.g. S1P) are major drivers of nerve regeneration in rodents, which are missing in human patients. Both, lipid metabolism and the presence of bioactive lipids can be pharmacologically modulated, making them a perfect target for a potential pharmacological treatment in patients.

In her current research, Sofia is combining in and ex vivo studies with the investigation of human nerve tissue in a translational approach in order to further characterize the role of lipid metabolism and bioactive lipids in the process of peripheral nerve regeneration.

 Sofia is funded by the DFG and is member of the Collaborative Research Center 1149 with title “Danger Response, Disturbance Factors and Regenerative Potential after Acute Trauma”.