Jena. When research results from laboratories at the Leibniz Institute on Aging - Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) qualify for further development towards application, she is never far away: Dr. Sonja Schätzlein, Manager of the Technology Transfer Service Facility. She has been part of the FLI team since 2013 and has since helped to secure more than €3.8 million in project funding and ways to develop research beyond the lab.
"When I started here, there was not yet a strong awareness for technology transfer. This has increasingly changed in recent years," says Dr. Sonja Schätzlein. On the one hand, this is due to a growing interest in advancing beyond the laboratory. On the other hand, it is also based on FLI's research focus. "The challenges faced by an aging society are omnipresent. At the FLI, with its focus on aging research, internationally renowned scientists are working on deciphering the molecular mechanisms of human aging and the development of aging-associated diseases. We are therefore making an enormously important contribution to society as a whole," explains Dr. Sonja Schätzlein. For her, this means finding ways to eventually translate the findings from the Jena laboratories into new therapies, thus helping to reduce the risk of developing age-related diseases or cancer. "Which can only be accomplished with a well-organized technology transfer program in place."
The range of tasks of the transfer program headed by Dr. Sonja Schätzlein is correspondingly extensive. Together with her team, she organizes project-related consulting and financing and provides personnel support. "We help with evaluation, risk management and the search for funding opportunities. But we also provide hands-on support during lab experiments. We are both mentors and doers," sums up Dr. Sonja Schätzlein.
And she never tires of finding new ways to motivate scientists to step out of the lab. Not a week goes by without the busy networker sending out emails about the latest funding opportunities, seminars and lectures. A commitment that pays off. Recently, the FLI was able to announce that Dr. Kanstantsin Siniuk has been awarded 96,000 euros in federal funding for his research project. The postdoc is conducting research at the FLI to improve the treatment of mitochondrial and neurodegenerative diseases. Without Dr. Sonja Schätzlein's support, the chances of success would have been lower. And the next success story is already in progress...
