Meet a scientist:
Dr. Ivana Nikić- Spiegel
Written by Stefanie Schuster
The Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN)
is part of the Cluster of Excellence at the University of Tübingen
and provides space for many renowned, systems-oriented neuro-
scientists. In this article, I interview Dr. Ivana Nikić-Spiegel, a new
Junior Group leader at the CIN. Dr. Ivana Nikić-Spiegel is interested
in the mechanisms underlying axonal injury in neuroinflammation.
She is originally from Serbia, studied molecular biology and physi-
ology at the University of Belgrade and followed up with a PhD at
the LMU Munich. As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Nikić-Spiegel
worked at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in
Heidelberg for 5 years before she started her own research group
in 2016 in Tübingen.
For our interview, Dr. Nikić-Spiegel an-
swered the following questions: Work in context: Why is it important
to do research on your topic?
What is the exact focus of your work? MS is the most common neuroinflam-
matory disease of the central nervous
system. It mainly affects young adults
and represents a major cause of non-
traumatic neurological disability. Up to
now, therapies cannot stop disease
progression, but rather only allevi-
ate symptoms. Although it is known
that neurological deficits in patients
We are working on mechanisms un-
derlying axonal injury in neuroinflam-
mation. Within that field, we are espe-
cially interested in understanding the
role of immune cells and their released
compounds and how these damage
axons in multiple sclerosis (MS).
are caused by axonal injury, this is not
a target of any current drug. Under-
standing how axons are damaged is
therefore fundamental to the devel-
opment of new therapeutic strategies.
What unique techniques are estab-
lished in your lab?
We are using a combination of modern
microscopy and protein engineering
tools. We work with super-resolution
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