Prof. Katja Simon
(Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, University of Oxford)

Katja Simon is studying autophagy and cell fates in the hematopoietic system. After a childhood spent in Hamburg and Paris, Katja Simon studied Biology in Berlin, followed by a diploma thesis at University College London. She subsequently trained as an immunologist under Avrion Mitchison at the DRFZ (German Rheumatology Research Center) in Berlin, investigating autoimmune diseases with an emphasis on cytokines in rheumatoid arthritis. Katja thus found that TH1 cytokines are present in excess in human autoimmune diseases during her PhD research. As a postdoc at the Centre d‘Immunologie Marseille Luminy, France, she investigated transcription factors regulating thymic cell death. During her second postdoc in Oxford, UK, at the Human Immunology Unit within the Sir David Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, she pursued her interest in cell fate, studying cell death molecules (Trail and FasL) in thymic selection, inflammation and tumor immunity. As a principal investigator, she set up an independent line of enquiry investigating autophagy, another cellular process determining cell fate, in the haemato-immune system. Her group discovered that autophagy, the main conserved cellular bulk degradation pathway, maintains healthy red blood cells, stem cells and memory T cells and promotes differentiation while preventing ageing of the hematopoietic system. In 2016, she joined the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in Oxford.