Heidi Hoels

Post doc

Although Dr Heidi Noels studied Civil Chemical Engineering, she performed a master thesis at the Faculty of Bio-Engineering as well as a PhD study in Medical Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Leuven, Belgium. She received her doctoral degree in 2008, with the title of her thesis 'Deregulation of the antigen receptor signaling pathway to NF-kappaB by the fusion protein API2-MALT1 in MALT lymphoma' under supervision of Prof. Marynen and Prof. Baens.

In 2008, she started with a von Humboldt fellowship as postdoc in the Institute for Molecular Cardiovascular Research (IMCAR) at the University Hospital of Aachen, at that time led by Prof. Weber. Since 2011, Dr Noels is leading her own research group at the RWTH Aachen, where she in 2021 also successfully accomplished her Habilitation in Experimental Cardiovascular Medicine. Since 2020, Dr. Noels is also associated with the Dept. of Biochemistry in CARIM.

Previous work resulted in the characterization of the role of chemokine receptors and their ligands in regulating inflammatory processes in atherosclerosis, as well as revealed novel insights in signaling molecules affecting atherosclerosis by influencing key regulators of inflammation. Currently, Dr Noels is focusing on the identification and characterization of pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the development of cardiovascular disease as well as the increased cardiovascular risk in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Ongoing studies focus on pathophysiological mechanisms in the context of myocardial infarction, cardiac remodeling and increased inflammatory and thrombotic risk in CKD.

For her research, Dr Noels received the W.H. Hauss Award of the German Atherosclerosis Society (2018) as well as the Werner Risau Award in Vascular Biology (2015).

Dr Noels is PI in/Managing Director of the Transregional Collaborative Research Consortium SFB/TRR219 funded by the German Research Foundation (2018-2025). Also, she was programme manager of the international Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Training Network 'CaReSyAn' (2018-2021), which included CARIM and IMCAR as partners, amongst others.