Prof. Dr Babette Simon
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“Helmholtz health research uses interdisciplinary approaches to gain a better understanding of the complex mechanisms of pathogenesis and the interactions between genetic predisposition and environmental factors. Such insights will provide a foundation for developing new approaches to personalised medicine and new early detection and prevention strategies.”
Professor Dr Babette Simon is senator of the Helmholtz Association for the Research Field Health and president of the University of Oldenburg.
She studied human medicine at Freiburg University and the Kantonsspital Basel and attained her PhD at Freiburg University in 1986 (Prof. Dr rer. nat. O. v. Deimling). Following an extended research visit at Massachusetts General Hospital, Havard Medical School, Boston, USA as a DFG research fellow (Prof. K. Isselbacher, Prof. D. Podolsky), she became head of the molecular biological research laboratory for gastrointestinal oncology and endrocrinology at Phillips University Clinic in Marburg and was awarded her habilitation in internal medicine in 1998. Simon has received many awards for her research work and was also included in the Year Book of Medicine and Year Book of Digestives Diseases (USA, 1995).
Simon is an internist and specialist in gastroenterology and is qualified in emergency medicine, radiation safety and nutritional medicine. She also holds the European Diploma of Gastroenterology. In 2005 she attained her MSc in Health Care Management at Heidelberg University (Medical Faculty Mannheim), successfully defending her thesis on the funding of university clinics in Germany.
From 2006 to 2010 she was vice-president of Marburg University, where she became extraordinary professor for the field of medicine in 2003.
Babette Simon is called upon as expert in manifold reviews and holds positions in various learned societies, foundations, executive boards of companies, university institutes, and science organisations. In 2009 she was appointed to the German Science Council's Scientific Commission and is also a member of the Science Council's Medical Committee. In the following year, she was appointed to the Health Research Council of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in 2010. Simon is a member of the DFG commission on research-oriented standards on gender equality, and of the university council of Fulda University, as well as a member of the board of trustees of Total E-QUALITY Deutschland e.V., and board member of the German University Association of Advanced Graduate Training (GUAT).
