Brief Bio
Dr. Sandra Siegert is a trained biologist who studies how microglia influence brain function. She received her Diplom at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, in 2005 and her Ph.D. in Neurobiology at the FMI in Basel in 2010. She was awarded an HFSP and SNSF fellowship to perform her postdoctoral work at MIT. In 2015, she returned to Europe, joined ISTA as an independent Assistant Professor with an ERC starting grant, and received tenure in 2023. Dr. Siegert combines various techniques to study the interplay between neurons and microglia. Throughout her career, she has been involved in innovative technology development, resulting in patent applications. Her most recent discovery of 60-Hz reducing perineuronal nets, which lock the brain in a functional state, opens the possibility of a noninvasive light therapy treatment for mental health challenges. As an ERC PoC awardee, she co-founded the start-up Syntropic Medical GmbH in 2023.