Vice Rector for Research

Prof Dr Carien Niessen 

Carien Niessen studied biology at Utrecht University and received her doctorate in 1996 from the Graduate School of Oncology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. From 1997 to 2001, she conducted research on the molecular mechanisms of cell adhesion and signal transduction at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

In 2002, she began managing a research group at the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC). Following the establishment of the Cologne Excellence Cluster on Aging and Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD), she became a Principal Investigator in 2007, and has been a professor at the Faculty of Medicine since 2008, leading the Department of Skin Cell Biology at CECAD since 2019.

In addition to her scientific work, Niessen has taken on numerous coordination and management functions in third-party funded collaborative projects. From 2007 to 2018, she led Research Platform B at CECAD, which was dedicated to the promotion of early-career researchers, gender equality and public relations, and she initiated the Cologne Graduate School of Ageing Research. From 2015 to 2021, she was spokesperson for Collaborative Research Centre 829 “Molecular Mechanisms Regulating Skin Homeostasis”, and has been the speaker for the CECAD Cluster of Excellence since 2019.

Carien Niessen is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Her research focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate the morphogenesis and regeneration of epithelial barriers in health and disease.