Wir überwinden Grenzen

Prof. Dr. Annette Thierauf-Emberger took over the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg on April 1, 2020 / Institute has a broad range of activities beyond classic autopsies

Prof. Dr. Annette Thierauf-Emberger (42) is the new Medical Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg. Thierauf-Emberger studied human medicine at the University of Freiburg and completed her doctorate on the degradation products of alcohol. After spending time abroad in Austria, Australia and Ireland, she worked in forensic medicine at the University of Bonn and in pathology at Dresden University Hospital. She has been working at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg since 2007 and habilitated on the forensic relevance of alcohol consumption markers in 2011. The Institute's research and activities focus on forensic medicine, forensic toxicology and forensic molecular biology.

Autopsies, drug tests, DNA analyses and research

"Our day-to-day work consists of much more than autopsies. In the medical field, we also examine living people who have been victims of a crime or for whom this needs to be clarified," says Thierauf-Emberger. In forensic toxicology, body fluids as well as seized substances are examined for narcotics, poisons and medicines. The test material comes, for example, from police procedures, prisons, driving fitness assessments or even from patients in hospitals for brain death diagnostics. Forensic molecular biology carries out forensic examinations to compare DNA traces at a crime scene with possible perpetrators on the one hand, and parentage assessments, so-called paternity tests, on the other.

Thierauf-Emberger's research focuses on forensic alcoholology. "This is a broad field that deals with questions from the legal field of tension surrounding alcohol in the body," says the forensic scientist. "We have investigated the significance of various metabolic products of alcohol in the body, differences in metabolism between young and older people and, most recently, the distribution of alcohol at the site of action of alcohol, the brain." The results provide answers for developing the right tests and correctly evaluating test results depending on the person being tested. These studies, carried out jointly with the Department of Medical Physics at the Department of Radiology at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg, are to be continued, with a focus on the special characteristics of older people.

Influence on legislation

Research at the Institute of Forensic Medicine has also repeatedly influenced legislation in the recent past, for example in the drafting and adoption of the New Psychoactive Substances Act (NpSG) or in the "extended DNA analysis" adopted at the end of last year, which allows the collection of certain characteristics from DNA samples in addition to forensic comparisons.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Annette Thierauf-Emberger
Medical Director
Institute of Forensic Medicine
Medical Center - University of Freiburg
0761 203-6836
annette.thierauf@uniklinik-freiburg.de

Caption
Image: Prof. Dr. Annette Thierauf-Emberger, Medical Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg
Image rights: Medical Center - University of Freiburg / Britt Schilling