Prof. Natalia Tschowri is molecular microbiologist, who investigates gene regulation, second messenger signaling and signal transduction in bacteria. In her ERC StG-supported project “Revealing second messenger functions in bacterial stress response, cell differentiation and natural product biosynthesis” (SecMessFunctions), Prof. Tschowri will elucidate the function and study regulation of novel second messengers using antibiotic-producing Streptomyces bacteria as a model.
Natalia was born in Werchni Koropez (Ukraine) and moved to Berlin with her family when she was 11 years old. She studied Biology at the Freie Universität Berlin (2001-2007) and received the “Katharina-Heinroth Award” for her diploma thesis. She gained her PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) for the research “Blue light signaling in the control of biofilm formation in Escherichia coli” at the same university in 2012. She then won an EMBO long-term fellowship to advance her research career at the John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK, 2012-2013). Natalia returned to Berlin to continue her research at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where she started her own research group in 2016, supported by the prestigious Emmy Noether Program (DFG). Since October 2020 Natalia is professor for cellular microbiology at the Leibniz University Hannover.