Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors

The Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors (IfADo) investigates potentials and risks of modern work on the basis of behavioral and life sciences and has a strong focus on toxicology, immunology as well as cell and molecular biology.

Jan Hengstler, director of the IfADo Leibniz Research Centre at TU Dortmund, has a background in liver toxicity and regeneration. His group has established imaging techniques of the liver including three dimensional tissue reconstruction, isolation of the different cell types of the liver and in vitro systems for steatosis induction and metabolic analyses. In the DEEP project his group will isolate hepatocytes and non-parenchymal cells from steatotic and normal mouse as well as human livers and make them available for analysis of epigenetic alterations. Moreover, his group will use cultivated mouse and human hepatocytes to induce steatosis and study the resulting epigenetic alterations and their functional consequences. Dr. Cristina Cadenas, also from IfADo in Dortmund, has a background in control mechanisms of autophagy. She will study to which degree compromised autophagy contributes to steatosis and vice versa, whether a steatotic microenvironment causes epigenetic alterations in genes critical for autophagy.

Principal Investigator

  • Photo of Prof. Dr. Jan Georg Hengstler
  • Prof. Dr. Jan Georg Hengstler
  • Scientific Director, Head of Systems Toxicology
  • Ardeystrasse 67, 44139 Dortmund, Germany
  • Tel: +49 2311084348
  • Fax: +49 231 1084 403

Additional Team Members

  • Cristina Cadenas
  • Tel: +49 2311084392
  • Fax: +49 231 1084 403
  • Role in the project: Senior Researcher
  • Patricio Godoy
  • Tel: +49 2311084256
  • Fax: +49 231 1084 403
  • Role in the project: Senior Researcher