Heidi Schwarzenbach, Ph.D., is a laboratory head at the Department of Tumour Biology of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany. She graduated in molecular/cell biology at the University of Basel, Biocenter, Switzerland. Her research has been focused on the characterization and quantification of cell-free nucleic acids, such as DNA, nucleosomes, and microRNAs, and the detection of genetic and epigenetic alterations of tumor suppressor genes on cell-free DNA in patients with different tumor types. In addition, a further focus of her investigational studies has been tumor immunology. She and her laboratory investigate the epigenetic regulation of cancer/testis genes and study the DNA methylation profiles, histone modifications, and involvement of methyl-CpG-binding proteins in the repression of these genes.