Prof. Dr. Cynthia Sharma
Prof. Dr. Cynthia Sharma

Prof. Dr. Cynthia Sharma

Chair, Institute for Molecular Infection Biology, Universität Würzburg

Day1, July 5, 13:30 p.m., Sesson A:
Innovative techonlogies: How molecular advances could shape the future of medicine

Cynthia Sharma is a full professor and Chair of Molecular Infection Biology II at the Institute of Molecular Infection Biology (IMIB) at the Julius-Maximilians University of Würzburg.

She studied Biology at the Heinrich-Heine-University of Düsseldorf and obtained her PhD in bacterial RNA biology at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin (MPIIB). After short postdoctoral work at the MPIIB and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda (USA), she joined the Research Center for Infectious Diseases (ZINF) in Würzburg as an independent junior group leader in 2010. Since 2017 she is heading the newly established Department of Molecular Infection Biology II at the IMIB in Würzburg. Moreover, she is spokesperson of the ZINF in Würzburg since 2018.

Research in her lab focuses on mechanisms of gene regulation in stress response and virulence control of bacterial pathogens as well as biology and mechanisms of prokaryotic RNA-based CRISPR-Cas immune systems.

Her research was recognized with several awards, such as the 2011 Postdoc award in Microbiology of the Robert Koch Foundation and the German Association for Hygiene and Microbiology (DGHM), the 2013 DGHM Young investigator award, and  the Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz-Preis of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in 2015. Recently, she was awarded an 2021 ERC Consolidator Grant.

More information/lab website:
http://www.imib-wuerzburg.de/research/sharma/group-leader/