Research and leadership
What it means to be head of a junior research group
The 17 heads of junior research groups at FAU are excellent in their subject area and already have responsibility for staff. Radiation biologist Lisa Deloch is one of them.
Women and men often present with quite different symptoms for the same disease. “Most people are now aware of this when it comes to a heart attack,” says Dr. Lisa Deloch. “However, women can also react quite differently to radiation than men.” Deloch, who has a doctoral degree in biology, works in the Translational Radiation Biology Group at the Department of Radiation Oncology, where she is the head of the junior research group “Radiation Osteoimmunology”. First of all, the team would like to know why low doses of x-ray radiation are generally so well suited to treating chronic inflammatory diseases of the joints such as osteoarthritis. “We look at how the interaction between the immune system, bones and cartilage works in our bodies,” the scientist explains. Her junior research group also investigates the influence of gender, age and state of health on the effectiveness and side effects of radiation on the body. These important questions relating to radiation protection are the focus of the “TOGETHER” project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Status boosts career
The excellent young researcher raised the funding for the project herself, thereby meeting one of the essential prerequisites for being the head of a junior research group. Young researchers who are outstanding in their subject, have already acquired funding and lead a working group of their own can apply. Lisa Deloch’s application was successful. She has been the head of the junior research group since May. “I am very pleased to receive this recognition of my work,” she explains. “It is a real boost to my career, and I am now also allowed to supervise the doctoral theses of the three doctoral candidates working in my group. That is a great deal of responsibility, but until now, I have always grown with challenges.”
Increased visibility and outreach
One look at the list of her publications and awards shows that this is indeed the case: In 2013, she published her first paper as a co-author in the “Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases”, and in the meantime she has published more than 20 papers in international scientific journals. Deloch has received nine prestigious awards, including the Günther-von-Pannewitz Award from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Radioonkologie (German Society of Radiation Oncology) and the MELODI Award from the Multidisciplinary European Low Dose Initiative. Dr. Lisa Deloch has definitely made a name for herself in the scientific community. “However, I must still work at increasing my visibility, and I benefit very much in this respect from being the head of a junior research group,” she stresses. Her outreach has already improved significantly, she continues, and her working group has started to be invited to attend conferences more often, and can be found more quickly online than was previously the case. .
by Elke Zapf
This article is part of the FAU Magazin
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