Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Jessica Bertrand

Experimentelle Orthopädie
Location: Haus 28
Leipziger Str. 44
39120 Magdeburg

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Jessica Bertrand heads the Experimental Orthopaedics Research Unit at the Orthopaedic University Hospital.

After her studies at the University of Osnabrück, the graduate biologist worked as a research assistant at the Department of Microbiology there until 2003. She then moved to the Leibniz Institute for Artheriosclerosis Research (LIFA) at the University of Münster as a doctoral student. After her PhD, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Experimental Musculoskeletal Medicine (IEMM) at the Medical Faculty of the University of Münster and then for one year at the Centre for Experimental Medicine and Rheumatology, Queen Mary in London on a grant from the German Research Foundation. In 2011, she returned to the IEMM - funded by a DFG fellowship. In 2013, she was accepted into the DFG's Emmy Noether Program. In this capacity, the osteoarthritis researcher headed the Junior Research Group on Cartilage Biology at the IEMM in Münster.

The focus of Prof. Bertrand's research is directed towards the study of the molecular mechanisms of cartilage remodeling under physiological and pathological conditions. This includes the mechanisms of enchondral ossification and pathological processes such as osteoarthritis, fracture healing and rheumatoid arthritis. The core hypothesis of her work is that there is a renewed activation of embryonic signaling cascades that are active during both fracture healing and osteoarthritis and are largely similar to those of enochondral ossification in embryonic development.