Ruprecht - Karls - Iniversitaet Heidelberg

The University of Heidelberg is one of nine German universities which was included into the German federal and state governments’ Excellence Initiative.

Network Aging Research (NAR)

The NAR (Director Prof. Dr. Konrad Beyreuther; scientific manager: Dr. Birgit Teichmann), which was founded in 2006, provides an infrastructure for linking institutions in the Rhine-Neckar Region working in the area of aging research. Researchers from the humanities, psychosocial and biomedical sciences collaborate on all aspects of aging, thus providing new methods of knowledge transfer to ensure the connection between research fields and bridging the gap between theory and practice. Both integrated and systematic approaches and interdisciplinarity make the NAR unique in Germany.

The NAR has successfully established interdisciplinary research seminars, research colloquia and small group meetings to foster interdisciplinary exchange between its members right from the start and throughout their scientific careers. Guest lectures from outstanding scholars in the field of aging research, such as Nobel Prize laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, were particular highlights in the short history of NAR that have stimulated the interest especially of young researchers. With the support of the Baden Württemberg state foundation, a research consortium on “Molecular and biomedical basics of aging processes: Determinants, mechanisms and implications for prevention, early diagnosis and therapy of age-associated diseases” has been set up, which from 2007 to 2012 provided the opportunity for 20 PhD students to collaborate in basic aging research. In addition, several graduate programs have been set up with the support of the Robert Bosch Foundation (13 doctoral students in the first round of 2010-2015 and 13 doctoral students in the current graduate program “People with dementia in acute care hospitals” (2016-2021) where Prof. Dr. Andreas Kruse, Prof. Dr.dr. Konrad Beyreuther, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bauer and Dr. Birgit Teichmann are responsible for the scientific coordination). In 2008 a six-year graduate program funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation to support 14 doctoral students and 3 early career researchers/postdocs was established. The current Klaus Tschira graduate program (2017-2021) provides support for six doctoral students. Furthermore, two junior research groups were established in 2015. Altogether, two senior professors, one scientific manager, three postdocs, 29 doctoral students, 4 student assistants, two secretaries, one IT Coordinator, and one Documentation Assistant are employed by the NAR.

Website: https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/en

https://www.nar.uni-heidelberg.de/en

Dr. Birgit Teichmann

Dr. Birgit Teichmann is a Biologist and Gerontologist. Since the foundation in 2007 she is working as a scientific manager at the Network Aging Research, Heidelberg University. Her research interest focuses on: Moral evaluation of genetic technologies: validation and translation of the “Genetic Technologies Questionnaire“ (German and Greek), ethical aspects of presymptomatic genetic testing for ApoE ε4, raising awareness of dementia among deaf people, sign language learning in older adults: improving cognition and social inclusion of people with hearing loss, attitudes towards dementia (informal caregivers, hospital staff), dementia programs (international differences with a focus on Germany and Greece), bilingualism and dementia.

She currently participates in the following research projects:

DE-SIGN (funding by the EU-Programm Erasmus+, duration 2022-2025) Subject: Raising Awareness for Dementia in Deaf Older Adults in Europe
GECONEU (funding by the EU-Programm Erasmus+, duration 2021-2024) Subject: Genetic counseling in European universities: The case of neurodegenerative diseases
Support for people with dementia and their relatives - a trialogue (funding by Manfred Lautenschläger Stiftung, duration 2023-2027)

Ioanna Antigoni Angelidou

Ioanna Antigoni Angelidou was born on the 14th of October 1994 in Cologne, Germany. She grew up bilingual in Athens and graduated from the German School of Athens (Deutsche Schule Athen, DSA) in 2013. Her native languages are Greek and German and she is fluent in English.

She completed her bachelor studies in Speech and Language Therapy from 2014 to 2018 at the University of Cologne. Subsequently, she continued with postgraduate studies in Rehabilitation Science, specializing on Gerontology and Hearing impairment (Thesis: Elderly Deaf people with dementia - The experiences of close caregivers). From 2018 to 2022 she worked as a Speech and Language Therapist on a full and part-time basis. Since 2022 she is an active member of the research team of the Aging Research Network at the University of Heidelberg and participates in the European Erasmus+ project GECONEU- Genetic Counselling in European Universities: The case of neurodegenerative diseases.