Dr. Anna Halama received her PhD from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany in 2013, where she obtained in-depth knowledge and skills in the field of metabolomics. Her research led to characterization of metabolic switches related to apoptosis and adipogenesis.

Dr. Halama joined WCM-Q in 2013 as a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Karsten Suhre’s group and continued her career development at WCM-Q as a research associate, a position she held from 2016-2019. In this period, she conducted her own research in the field of metabolism and supported fellow scientists in the design of metabolomics-based experiments and analysis of metabolomics data. Dr. Halama significantly contributed to the establishment of a targeted metabolomics platform in Qatar at the Translational Research Institute in Hamad Medical Corporation.

Dr. Halama become an Assistant Professor of Research in Physiology and Biophysics at WCM-Q in April 2019. Her research focuses on metabolic deregulations in complex diseases, particularly cancer, diabetes and psoriasis. Dr. Halama is focused on implementation of metabolomics into the clinical pipeline. She is conducting research aimed at determining so-called “metabolic knobs” which could be used as targets for medical intervention. She is also investigating metabolic deregulation in psoriasis to help improve treatment strategies and patient stratification through the development of novel metabolomics-based strategies. In her ongoing study of breast cancer patients, Dr. Halama is aiming to assess tumor metabotypes and their role in resistance to standard of care treatment.  

Dr. Halama is the academic editor for PLOS ONE and a reviewer of several other journals.