Department of Genetic Epidemiology

The Department of Genetic Epidemiology was founded at the University Medical Centre in Göttingen as the first ever independent institution in this field at a university in Germany in 2001. Right from the outset, the Department was founded within the framework of the National Genomic Research Network as one of a few nationwide Centres of Methods in Genetic Epidemiology or GEMs. The Department has since managed to establish itself in this discipline accordingly.
As Director of the Department, I am currently locally on the board of the inter-faculty Campus Institute Data Science (CIDAS), into which the Centre for Statistics has been incorporated as a section. Internationally, I was the President of the International Genetic Epidemiology Society (IGES) in 2021 and hosted the IGES international annual conference in Paris in 2022. I received the IGES leadership award in 2011.
Research foci are the investigation of genetic influence on complex diseases and the development of statistical procedures above all in conjunction with comprehensive molecular studies and including machine learning. In addition to teaching in statistics and genetic epidemiology, the Department represents teaching in the field of epidemiology in its entirety. This also includes overarching topics from data science, such as the awareness and avoidance of gender bias.

We look forward to you contacting us and remain,
With best wishes,
 

Heike Bickeböller
Director