We are expanding our professorial staff to strengthen the field of digital health: Prof. Dr. med. Katarina Braune will start on October 1 with her research area "Digital Health – Non-Communicable Diseases."
Prof. Braune is a pediatrician, diabetologist, and board-certified medical informatician. In her work, she combines medical, technological, and social perspectives to develop digital solutions for chronic, non-communicable diseases – in particular diabetes mellitus. Previously, she researched and taught at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, among other places, and helped shape international initiatives that set standards in the care of chronic diseases.
She has lived with type 1 diabetes since childhood and has long been active in the international diabetes online community. This personal experience shapes her research and her goal of developing digital health solutions that are closely aligned with the needs of those affected. "Digital health must reclaim its purpose: to serve people, not systems. I want to design technologies that restore autonomy, compassion, and context to care – especially for those overlooked by industrial healthcare."
At Hasso Plattner Institute, she will advance practice-oriented research and teaching with her interdisciplinary team. Areas of focus include AI-supported assistance systems, personalized therapies, and open data platforms. The goal is to close gaps in care and make digital innovations accessible worldwide.
Chronic, non-communicable conditions–such as diabetes, cardiovascular conditions and certain cancers–are among the greatest global health challenges. They cause the highest number of lost healthy life years worldwide and affect people of all ages and genders across all regions.
Digital technologies offer the opportunity to significantly improve prevention, early detection, and treatment. The prerequisite: these technologies must be fair, understandable, and usable by everyone. Prof. Braune's research is dedicated to the development and evaluation of such digital approaches.
