Jürgen Graf

Jürgen Graf started his academic journey studying Mathematics and Chemistry before changing to Medicine, in which he is in the final semester of the clinical phase of the curriculum.

His research focuses on the CYP17a1 gene locus, that has recently been associated with cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors and diseases that are expressed in a sex-specific manner. In particular, the testosterone deficiency, that arises from an impairment in said gene in males, will be modelled by examining genetically designed CYP17a1-x-ApoE-knock-out-mice, aiming to find a causation between the deleted gene, low testosterone levels, atherosclerotic lesions and other changes in the circulatory and metabolic system. Further, it will be explored whether an external testosterone supplementation turns out to be beneficial.

His work is part of the larger scaled DFG-promoted project "Dissect the sex-specific role of the CYP17a1 locus in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases" that is also taking estrogen and potential pharmacological interventions into account.