Visiting Clinical Scientist: Lina Welz

Lina is a visiting clinician scientist from the University Hospital of Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH Kiel), Germany, who is grateful for being a part of the McReynolds lab from August -December 2022. As a physician, she is specializing in Internal Medicine & Gastroenterology (especially Inflammatory Bowel Disease), whereas as a scientist, she is looking into the dynamics of tryptophan metabolism in intestinal inflammation at the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB, Kiel, Germany; "Systems Immunology" & "Intestinal Immunometabolism" group). Combining both professions enables her to perform a translational-research-based approach to unravel underlying pathomechanisms of altered tryptophan turnover in chronic inflammatory disorders, which has been observed for decades but still remains incompletely understood. During her medical thesis (2016 - 2021, IKMB Kiel), she has discovered a novel role of the ER-stress-mediator Xbp1 in coordinating epithelial DNA damage responses upon intestinal inflammation. Mechanistically, by regulating p53- and mTOR-activity, Xbp1 prevents colitis-associated cancer (Welz et al., Gastroenterology, 2021). 

Visiting Clinical Scientist - Lina Welz

Education: 

  • Physician (State Examination in Medicine, 2021), M.D. defense due at the end of 2022


Personal and Fun Facts from Lina:

In Lina's opinion, 24-hours/day are not enough to fit everything she wants to do into every-day-life. Usually, this results in a shortcoming of sleep, so please be extra gentle when approaching her before she had her first two cups of coffee (this luckily happens quite earlier, so you should be safe to go). If she should not be distracted by some fascinating paper, experiment, or clinical case, you will probably find her around friends & family, reading, doing sports or hanging out outdoors (preferably in the sun, at the seaside, in some snow-covered place or in Scandinavia). Fun Fact: Lina choses walking over buses, bikes, and cars, so if you find her walking back and forth from campus, don't worry, she is neither confused nor lost.