Prof. Dr. Caroline Kisker

Portfolio: Research and Academic Career Development

As Vice-President, Caroline Kisker is responsible for the portfolio of ‘Research and Academic Career Development’. Prof. Kisker is holding the Chair of Structural Biology at the Rudolf Virchow Centre, JMU.

Her research at a life sciences centre of excellence and her commitment in her long-standing leadership as Dean of a Graduate School with now around 800 natural science and medical doctoral researchers in the field of life sciences predestine Kisker for her for her tasks as Vice-President for Research and Academic Career Development.
She is committed to position JMU in the best possible way for the current round of calls for proposals within the German Excellence Strategy and to offer young scientists optimal conditions for their research and careers.

Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Kisker studied biochemistry at Freie Universität Berlin and earned her doctorate with a thesis in the fields of structural biology and biochemistry in 1994. She pursued postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology (USA) and was subsequently appointeed Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Stony Brook University (USA).

In 2005, Prof. Kisker became chair of structural biology at the Rudolf Virchow Centre - Centre for Integrative and Translational Bioimaging at the University of Würzburg. Since 2016, she has led the Centre together with Bernhard Nieswandt. Since 2009, Prof. Kisker has also served as Dean of the Graduate School of Life Sciences at the University of Würzburg, for which she was also responsible to secure funding under the Excellence Initiative.

The research interests of Prof. Kisker are in DNA repair mechanisms and structure-based drug design to identify new therapeutics against infectious diseases and tumours.