Iris Winkler started her studies in English and Biology at Bergische University of Wuppertal. Discovering her fascination of how the central nervous system (CNS) works, she intensified her studies at Ruhr-University of Bochum with focus on neurobiology. Within her bachelor thesis she explored the regulation and function of a neuropeptide in migraine and during her master thesis she manipulated neuronal network activity by application of optogenetic tools. During her master’s module neuroimmunology she ascertained her interest in neurological disorders associated with CNS inflammation, which brought her to work on understanding neurodegenerative pathways in multiple sclerosis (MS) at the INIMS in 2015. During her PhD she investigated the functional role of regulatory small RNAs (microRNAs) to understand how neurons buffer environmental contingencies caused by CNS inflammation. In her current work she continues studying microRNA–mRNA networks in order to reveal new protective neuron intrinsic pathways in MS.
Link to Pubmed