Forschung

Melitta Schachner is interested in the role of adhesion molecules in cell interactions of the nervous system. She has been instrumental in introducing antibody technology to discover and functionally characterize these molecules not only during ontogenetic development, but also in synaptic function and plasticity as well as regeneration in acute and chronic nervous system diseases. She discovered that adhesion molecules not only function in cell recognition, but also affect cellular signaling cascades reaching as far as the nucleus of neural and cancer cells. She is active on three continents, heading her emeritus laboratory in Hamburg, leading a research group at Rutgers University as New Jersey Professor of Spinal Cord Research, and consulting at the Center of Neuroscience of the Li Kashing University Medical College in Shantou. She belongs to the most cited neuroscientists worldwide with an H-factor of 112.