Bernd Kaina
Director and Professor
University Medical Center
Germany
Biography
Dr. Kaina obtained his Ph.D. in Genetics in 1976 from the Universtity of Halle, Germany. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Institute of Genetics in Gatersleben and continued his studies on DNA repair at the Department of Molecular Biology in Leiden, Netherlands, at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg and, as a Heisenberg fellow, at the Department of Genetics of the Nuclear Research Center in Karlsruhe, Germany. In 1993, he obtained a full professorship at the Institute of Toxicology of the University of Mainz and, since 2003, he acts as a director of the Institute. His research program focuses on MGMT and the regulation of repair genes, DNA damage signaling, genotoxicity, cancer formation and death of cells exposed to radiation, chemical genotoxins and anticancer drugs. In a translational research program, his group studies the mechanisms of resistance of glioma, melanoma and other cancer cell types to alkylating anticancer drugs.
Research Interest
DNA repair and genotoxic signaling Mechanisms of chemical carcinogenesis Mechanisms of anticancer drugs and DNA damage-triggered apoptosis