Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Nicole Fischer is a German biologist specialized in the field of molecular virology. She studied biology at the Saarland University (Germany) and received her diploma degree in 1994. After completing her PhD thesis in virology (Prof. Müller-Lantzsch; Prof. Grässer) at the Saarland University in 1998, she started her postdoctoral research on the regulation of mRNA export and decay at the University of California, Berkley (USA) in 1999 (working with Prof. Karsten Weis) followed by an assistant specialist position at the University of California, San Francisco (USA) in the labs of Prof. Joseph DeRisi and Prof. Don Ganem where she focused on the identification of novel viruses in acute and chronic diseases. In 2006, she joined the UKE as a group leader in virology at the Institute for Medical Microbiology, Virology and Hygiene, where she completed her habilitation in 2011 and became a professor (W2) for Diagnostic and Molecular Virology in 2015. Since 2025, she has been the director of the newly established Institute for Molecular Virology and Tumorvirology and current board member of the C3i network (Center for Inflammation, Infection and Immunity) focusing on research and treatment of inflammatory and infectious diseases. Within the same year, she also received an associated professorship at the Leibniz Institute of Virology (LIV). Her research group and laboratories are located at the Campus Forschung II (N25) of the UKE where her team studies chronic viral infections, including viral tumorigenesis, with a focus on human polyomaviruses and the mechanisms of their pathogenesis. Her institute is also involved in translational research, such as identifying cellular mechanisms and structures that can be developed for antiviral therapy, and using high-throughput sequencing to identify known and emerging pathogens. Her work is part of the DFG-funded research group FOR5200 DEEP-DV: Disrupt – Evade – Exploit, Gene expression and host response programming in DNA virus infection , of which she is a member of the speaker team since 2021.