Curriculum Vitae
Leena Kaarina Bruckner-Tuderman is professor and chair of the Department of Dermatology at the University Medical Center, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg.
She studied medicine in Oulu, Finland, and after an experimental dissertation in molecular medicine, continued her postdoctoral work in biochemistry in Piscataway, N.J., USA, and in structural biology in Basel, Switzerland. She specialized in dermatology and qualified for her state doctorate (Habilitation) at University of Zurich, Switzerland, 1988. From 1990 to 1994 she was a Score-Fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Thereafter she became a Heisenberg fellow of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and moved to the Münster University, Germany, where she became professor of dermatology and venerology. During this period in Münster she was also a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong and at the Harvard Medical School, Boston.
In 2002 she received a call as professor and chair of dermatology and venerology at the University of Freiburg which she accepted in 2003. Since 2007 she is fellow and deputy director of the School of Life Sciences – LIFENET of the newly founded institute, FRIAS, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.
She has been and continues to be a board member of numerous national and international foundations, programmes and committees such as, DEBRA, ADF, ESDR, SID, DDG, EU, Gordon Research Conferences, etc. She is a member of the editorial board for Journals in dermatology and venerology, as well as scientific advisor to the German Research Foundation DFG and the Federal Ministry for Education and Research, BMBF.
Bruckner-Tuderman has been distinguished by many awards, both nationally and internationally. In 1992 she was awarded the Swiss Prof. Dr. Max Cloetta-Research Award followed in the next year by the Friedrich Götz-Foundation Research Award of the Zurich University, Switzerland. She held the Maria-Duran Lecture at the International Society for Dermatology in 2007 and the Rudi-Cormane Lecture of the European Society for Dermatological Research in 2008. In 2009 Leena Bruckner-Tuderman received the Eva Luise Köhler Research Award. The prize – awarded to scientists with a record of exceptional research on rare diseases – is endowed with €50,000 and was awarded in the presence of the Federal President Horst Köhler. She is a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. She serves as a Corresponding Member of the Finnish, Swedish and Swiss Dermatology Societies and an Honorary Member of the Hungarian Dermatological Society.
Research Focus
Molecular genetics and disease mechanisms of skin disorders, biology of basement membranes and the extracellular matrix, epithelial-mesenchymal communication, cell-matrix interactions. Development of cell-, gene- and protein-based therapies.
- C. Has, G. Sparta, D. Kiritsi, L. Weibel, A. Moeller, V. Vega-Warner, A. Waters, Y. He, Y. Anikster, P. Esser, B.K. Straub, I. Hausser, D. Bockenhauer, B. Dekel, F. Hildebrandt, L. Bruckner-Tuderman, G.F. Laube: Integrin alpha3 mutations with kidney, lung, and skin disease. New Engl J Med, 2012; 366 (16): 1508-1514.
- C.W. Franzke, C. Cobzaru, A. Triantafyllopoulou, S. Loffek, K. Horiuchi, D.W. Threadgill, T. Kurz, N. van Rooijen, L. Bruckner-Tuderman, C.P.Blobel: Epidermal ADAM17 maintains the skin barrier by regulating EGFR ligand-dependent terminal keratinocyte differentiation. J Exp Med, 2012.
- D. Kiritsi, Y. He, A. M.G. Pasmooij, M. Onder, R. Happle, M. Jonkman, L. Bruckner-Tuderman, C. Has: Revertant mosaicism in a human skin fragility disorder results from slipped mispairing and mitotic recombination. J Clin Invest. 2012; 122(5): 1742-1746.
- L.Y. Chiang, K. Poole, B.E. Oliveira, N. Duarte, Y.A. Sierra, L. Bruckner-Tuderman, M. Koch, J. Hu, G.R. Lewin: Laminin-332 coordinates mechanotransduction and growth cone bifurcation in sensory neurons. Nat Neurosci, 2011 (14): 993-1000.
- W. Nishie, D. Kiritsi, A. Nystroem, S.C. Hofmann, L. Bruckner-Tuderman: Dynamic interactions of epidermal collagen XVII with the extracellular matrix: laminin 332 as a major binding partner. Am J Pathol ,2011 (179): 829-837.
Genetic disorders reveal loss or altered functions of proteins as a consequence of gene mutations. We analyze human skin conditions and their mouse models as an example to gain indirect information on normal functions of the mutated proteins and to uncover molecular interaction networks of epithelial and mesenchymal tissue compartments. Genomics and proteomics technologies are employed to obtain information on the complex networks individual molecules are involved in and on their contributions to tissue functions. The skin is an ideal organ to investigate such processes, because it is easily accessible to analyses at tissue, cell and molecular levels.
