Katharina Rox

Katharina Rox is a researcher at the Department of Chemical Biology within the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI). She leads the Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) Unit under the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and has headed the HZI PK/PD research group since 2025.

• Education: Studied pharmacy at the University of Münster; received her doctorate from Saarland University in 2015.

Her research focuses on the preclinical development of novel anti-infectives, utilizing innovative in vitro and in silico models to study pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic correlations (e.g., hollow-fiber infection models). Her work also involves developing bioanalytical methods for identifying therapeutic concepts and biomarkers.

The 15 most recent articles highlight her expertise in anti-infective development, targeting pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella, and SARS-CoV-2, with methodologies spanning structure-based drug design, PK/PD modeling, and biofilm disruption.

She has collaborated internationally, including a guest research period at RIKEN, Japan (2019), and works closely with institutions like the University of Queensland and University of Saarland.