Our research focus, our expertise

The nervous system of children and adolescents is still developing and therefore reacts particularly sensitively to disturbances – it is interconnected with all organ systems of the human body and is the basic prerequisite for a future, healthy life.

Our endeavor is to decipher the functions of the infant nervous system at the morphological, cellular and molecular level. In our research laboratories, we use state-of-the-art techniques in physiology, histology, biochemistry, molecular biology and microscopy, but also imaging techniques such as MRI. We use the knowledge gained to better understand the development of a healthy nervous system and to elucidate the causes and mechanisms of disease.

The research focus of our numerous externally funded projects is on diseases such as neurometabolic and neurodegenerative disorders, brain tumors and multiple sclerosis.

The interaction of basic research and preclinical and clinical research enables us, together with the Clinical Trials Unit of the University Medical Center Göttingen, to quickly transfer new findings into clinical application within the framework of our own clinical studies or participation in national and international clinical trials.

All our research groups are part of the Göttingen Campus, a local network of the University Medical Center Göttingen with multiple interfaces to university and non-university research institutions such as the Göttingen Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences. Furthermore, the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine is coordinating the establishment of the new German Center for Child and Adolescent Health for the Göttingen site.