Affiliation: Freie Universität Berlin, Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

Sonja Bröer completed her veterinary degree in Hannover, Germany. For her PhD and post-doctoral work in epilepsy research, she worked under the supervision of Wolfgang Löscher, Michael Rogawski, and Christophe Bernard. For the past four years she has been leading a team in the Preclinical Department of San Francisco-based biotech Neurona Therapeutics to evaluate the disease-modifying activity of transplanted interneurons in animal models of epilepsy and seizures. Since October 2020, she has been an appointed faculty member at Free University of Berlin, Germany, and is leading her own group in the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology. Her research in neuroscience is inspired by multidisciplinary approaches evaluating the role of the immune system and degeneration and regeneration of neurons in diseases of the central nervous system. She continues to focus on epilepsy as one of the most common chronic neurological diseases and is hoping to contribute to finding new translational therapies for this devastating condition.