Christina is a physician scientist with a clinical and research focus on pediatric hematology and oncology. Inspired through her clinical work in the pediatric cancer and bone marrow transplantation unit at the University of Freiburg, Germany, Christina investigates leukemia biology with the aim to improve therapeutic strategies for hematological malignancies. Her particular interest comprises integrating metabolic approaches to understand the role of leukemia stem cells in causing disease and relapse.

Her passion for leukemia began already as an MD student when she pursued a project entitled “Sensitization of acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells to LCL161-induced cell death by influencing redox homeostasis” (Biochem Pharmacol, 2016) at the Institute for Experimental Cancer Research in Pediatrics led by Professor Simone Fulda in Frankfurt, Germany. For her thesis, which was funded by the Collaborative Research Center Redox Regulation, she graduated summa cum laude from Goethe-University Frankfurt.

During her residency she studied metabolic side effects of leukemia treatment (Pediatr Hematol Oncol, 2020) and explored treatment concepts of juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (J Clin Med, 2021) supervised by Professor Charlotte Niemeyer in the Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology in Freiburg.

Christina has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the German Research Foundation in 2021 for her project in the Scadden lab at the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (HSCRB).