Maria Kasper

PhD, Karolinska Institute

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

ORCID

Maria Kasper, MSc, PhD, is an expert in skin biology and internationally well known for pioneering the use of a new technology called “single-cell RNA sequencing” in skin.

Using this new technique, Maria Kasper’s research group recently generated a skin cell atlas, the first of its kind, depicting 56 different types of cells in skin. This atlas revealed new insights on the broad diversity of functions our skin performs, such as making skin watertight and how hair is produced. While the atlas focuses on mouse skin, this atlas is highly relevant for human skin too, because the principles of how skin maintains itself, grows hair, repairs wounds or initiates cancer are quite similar in mice and humans. You can find the atlas here: http://kasperlab.org/mouseskin.

Her research group uses modern laboratory technologies, mouse models, and powerful computer programs to investigate how different types of skin cells work together to heal a wound and why some cells give rise to tumours whereas others do not. Her research group also studies human skin with high interest in the different types of immune cells and the roles they play in keeping our skin healthy or contributing to skin disease.

Dr. Kasper is Principal Investigator at the Karolinska Institutet. She received her doctoral degree at the University of Salzburg, Austria, in natural sciences with majors in genetics and molecular tumour biology. In 2013, after a 6-year postdoctoral training in the lab of Prof. Rune Toftgård focusing on skin and tumour biology, she established her lab own lab in skin and single-cell biology. 

Find out more about Dr Kasper’s team and research focus here.

“Focus on the skin – why do cancer cells occur?” Learn from this short video featuring Maria Kasper.

CONTACT ME