Dr. Britta Küst

BRITTA KÜST, PhD

Britta Küst is the Scientific Coordinator of the Schools for Soft Matter Research and Life Sciences-LifeNet at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS).

In this position she is head of the office of those two schools and is responsible for the administration and recruitment of fellows as well as the organization of conferences.

Short Profile

After graduating from the Heinrich-Heine-Gymnasium in Kiel-Heikendorf in 1987, Britta Küst studied biology (microbiology, zoology, biochemistry) at the University of Kiel where she also worked as a scientific collaborator at the Institute for Microbiology. In 1993 Britta Küst received her Diploma in Microbiology from Kiel University and in 1998 she obtained her PhD from the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg for the work on „Potassium-channel expression in microglial primary cultures“ (magna cum laude). Work for this doctoral thesis included research at the Department of Psychiatry and Institute for Biology of the University of Freiburg.

In 1999 Britta Küst moved to Groningen, the Netherlands. As a post-doc at the Department of Medical Physiology at the University of Groningen Britta Küst worked for six years on neurotrophins and their involvement in neurodegenerative diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Next to the publications of several original articles, she was a lecturer for medical and biology students and gave oral presentations at national and international meetings.

In 2005 Britta Küst moved from the field of active scientific research and became research manager of the School for Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences (BCN) at the University of Groningen. As a Coordinator of this research school with approximately 250 senior scientists, circa 160 PhD students, and 42 research master students, her tasks were among others to organize the BCN office and to crosslink local and national neuroscience researchers. Britta Küst initiated and coordinated interdisciplinary educational programs for master and PhD-students, and she helped recruiting top-scientists for these programs.

In addition to these responsibilities, Britta Küst was a member of the University´s admissions, examination and educational committees, as well as chief-editor of the research school´s newspaper.

In 2008 Britta Küst became the Scientific Coordinator for the Schools for Soft Matter Research and Life Sciences-LifeNet at FRIAS, the newly founded Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies at the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg.

Selected Publications

1.) Balasubramaniyan V, Boddeke E, Bakels R, Küst BM, Kooistra S, Veneman A, Copray JC. Effects of histone deacetylation inhibition on neuronal differentiation of embryonic mouse neural stem cells. Neuroscience 2006;143(4):939-51.

2.) Küst BM, Mantingh IJ, Boddeke HW, Copray JC. Deficient p75 low-affinity neurotrophin receptor expression does alter the composition of cellular infiltrate in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in C57BL/6 mice. J Neuroimmunol. 2006;174(1-2):92-100.

3.) Balasubramaniyan V, Timmer N, Küst BM, Boddeke HW, Copray JC. Transient expression of Olig1 initiates the differentiation of   neural stem cells into oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. Stem Cells 2004; 22(6):878-82.

4.) Küst BM, Copray JC, Brouwer N, Troost D, Boddeke HW. Elevated levels of neurotrophins in human biceps brachii tissue of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Exp Neurol. 2002;177(2):419-27.

5.) Küst B, Biber K, van Calker D, Gebicke-Haerter PJ. Regulation of K+ channel mRNA expression by stimulation of adenosine A2a-receptors in cultured rat microglia. Glia 1999; 25(2):120-130.

Küst BM & Copray JC. Involvement of neurotrophins and their common receptor p75NTR in the pathology of ALS. Amyotrophic Lateral sclerosis: New Research, Nova Biomedical Books 2006.

Küst BM. Internationalisierung an niederländischen Hochschulen. IVI-Internationalisierung, Vielfalt und Inklusion in Hochschulen, ISSN 1860-305X, 2/2007: 44-46.