Teaching expertise

Hands-on (Diagnostic) laboratory skills in resource-limited settings

Laboratory management in resource-limited settings

Development of didactic material

• Website
• E-learning modules
• Videos

Involvement in specific courses

Post-graduate course "Tropical Medicine and Clinical Decision Making (TMCDM)"

• Coordination
• Teaching Laboratory Practice classes

Post-graduate course "Introduction to International Health/Challenges in International Health (IIH/CIH)"

• Coordination of AMR block and Field Lab Preparedness Block
• Teaching Laboratory Practice and Field Lab Preparedness classes

Post-graduate course "Tropical Medicine for Bachelors in Nursing and Midwifery (TMED)" in French and English

• Teaching Laboratory Practice classes

Policy

• Chair of the Education Commission
  

Research expertise

Since 2023 Vera works as reasearch fellow at the Malariology Unit of ITM. She is coordignating investigator of the IMMETASEX project, that investiages host immune and metabolic determinants of sexual conversion in Plasmodium parasites in Mozambique and Burkina Faso.

From 2019 -  2023 Vera worked as the Educational Coordinator in the Unit of Tropical Laboratory Medicine of ITM. Here she develoeped & coordinated courses, gave classes (laboratory classes, field lab preaprdness) and developed educational material, e.g. the ITM Labhub website, videos and online courses.

From 2015 - 2020 Vera completed a PhD on diagnostic antigens for serodiagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis in the unit of Parasite Diagnostics at the Institute of Tropical Medicine. Her PhD was as part of a Marie Sklodowska-Curie - Innovative Training Network EuroLeish.net.

After her master’s degree she spend 1,5 years in Gabon managing the Parasitology Laboratory of the Centre de Recherches Médicales de Lambaréné (CERMEL). Here Vera coordinated and took part in a team that supports clinical trials by performing routine diagnosis of helminth infections and she set up a molecular diagnostic unit. Alongside she performed studies on accuracy and applicability of the diagnostic methods.

Vera completed her bachelor degree in Biology at the University of Tübingen. Since her bachelor’s thesis – a functional analysis of polymorphisms in the Interleukin 2 promotor region - at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Tübingen her academic vitae has evolved around neglected tropical diseases. She focused on parasitology and infectious diseases during her master studies in Biology at the University of Hamburg and completed her master’s thesis at the Bernhard-Nocht-Institute of Tropical Medicine in Hamburg. For her master’s thesis Vera conducted research on the membrane proteome of Entamoeba histolytica and possible membrane-bound pathogenicity factors. During that time she completed an internship at the Médecins Sans Frontières’ Access Campaign where she lobbied for more political support for research in this field.