Dr. Franziska Knopf appointed Professor of Biology of Bone Regeneration in Model Organisms at TU Dresden

Dr. Franziska Knopf was appointed Professor of Biology of Bone Regeneration in Model Organisms at TU Dresden. Her research group at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) and the Center for Healthy Aging at the Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus studies mechanisms of bone formation and regeneration in zebrafish.

The skeleton provides structural support to the body. After a physical injury, broken bones need to heal quickly to regain stability. Humans can repair their bones after a fracture but healing can be compromised by a number of factors. Apart from age, chronic inflammation and immunosuppressant drugs can prevent regeneration. So do complicated and big fractures. Prof. Knopf and her team study cellular and molecular mechanisms that control bone regeneration to ultimately leverage them for regenerative therapies.

In their work the Knopf group uses the zebrafish. It is a remarkable model organism that can regrow complex body structures, including bones. Studying bone formation in a living organism helps to shine light on how different cell types such as bone-forming cells and immune cells communicate with each other to promote regrowth of bones. In this way, researchers can not only understand bone regeneration in healthy organisms but also identify the challenges for bone regeneration occurring after complex injury or as a consequence of medical treatment of inflammatory diseases.

“My group’s work helps to understand bone regeneration and could have important implications for future regenerative therapies for the skeleton. I am very happy to be appointed professor and to continue my research at the CRTD and the Center for Healthy Aging,” says Prof. Knopf.

About Prof. Franziska Knopf:

Prof. Franziska Knopf studied biology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In 2011, she completed her PhD at TU Dresden working in the lab of Gilbert Weidinger on osteoblast dedifferentiation in the zebrafish fin. She continued to work on tissue regeneration in zebrafish as a postdoctoral researcher in his group at the Biotechnology Center (BIOTEC) of TU Dresden until 2012. In 2013, she was awarded an EMBO Long-Term Postdoctoral Fellowship and moved to the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at the University of Oxford to study fracture repair in mammals. She came back to Germany and began her work at the CRTD in 2016. In 2017, Prof. Knopf was appointed a Junior Professor at TU Dresden and started her own research group at the CRTD and the Center for Healthy Aging of the Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus. In December 2024, after a successful tenure evaluation, she became a Professor of Biology of Bone Regeneration in Model Organisms.