Soni Deshwal

Soni Deshwal is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany, affiliated with the Department Langer. Her research focuses on mitochondrial biology, particularly the role of mitochondria in ferroptosis and cellular defense mechanisms. She completed her Master’s in Molecular Genetics at the University of Leicester and earned her PhD from the University of Padova as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow. She was an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at her current institute before securing the prestigious ERC Starting Grant (2024) to establish her independent research group.

Her work explores mitochondrial transport of coenzyme Q to inhibit ferroptosis, mitochondrial communication networks, and oxidative stress in diseases like diabetes and neurodegeneration. Key findings include the discovery that mitochondria suppress ferroptosis via coenzyme Q transport and their potential cross-talk with the endoplasmic reticulum. She has also investigated monoamine oxidase A’s role in cardiomyocyte differentiation and diabetic cardiomyopathy.

Awarded the ERC Starting Grant (2024), her research bridges mitochondrial biology, cell death mechanisms, and translational medicine. Her group investigates how mitochondrial functions regulate metabolic cell death pathways, with implications for developing therapies targeting ferroptosis in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.