Life of a Research Group Leader & Animal Testing

Science with Milk, No Sugar

This month we have an exciting topic, with an even more exciting guest! A hint: You Are, What You Eat!
I'm talking to Rachel Lippert about her career as an unconventional neuoscientist studying maternal nutrition and fetal brain development. She knows all about how what we eat can influence our (own and) offspring's health and growth. We'll discuss how she ended up in this field of research as a first-generation scientist and how she decided to lead her own lab in Germany. She'll tell us about the challenges of opening it during a pandemic, what her days look like, what hidden tasks she never expected, and what it's like to work on mice. In Germany, animal research is primarily carried out in the areas of basic research, medicine and veterinary medicine - never for cosmetics and detergents! Animal testing can be a hot topic and researchers are often criticized for working on mice. Rachel made it her mission to educate the public on how the process works, how the well-being of the animals is ensured, and why it's an important step for curing and treating diseases.

About Rachel:
Dr. Rachel Lippert is an American-born Neuroscientist from Ohio, USA with Bachelor's degrees in Chemistry and English Literature. During her Ph.D. research at Vanderbilt University, she learned to love learning about food intake behavior and metabolism - something she kept looking into at her Postdoctoral position at Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Köln.

In 2020, Rachel opened her own lab at the German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE) as a NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence-supported Junior Research Group Leader.

Sponsors for this month's episodes:

NeuroCure is a Cluster of Excellence in neurosciences funded since 2007 by the German federal & state governments (Excellence Initiative).

The focus of the Cluster is on investigating neurological and psychiatric disorders. By promoting close cooperation between basic science and clinical research, the Cluster aims to more rapidly transfer findings from basic research to clinical application.

Learn more: https://neurocure.de/en/index.html Twitter: https://twitter.com/NeuroCureBerlin
Visit the website: https://franzisattler.com
E-Mail: [e-mail]
Science With Milk, No Sugar Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scicommcafe/

Franziska's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ohyeahfranzi
Franziska's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scicommsattler/
Rachel's Twitter: https://twitter.com/RachelLippert
German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE): https://www.dife.de/en/research/departments-and-labs/neurocircuit-development-and-function/
DIfE Twitter: https://twitter.com/Leibniz_DIfE