First person – Rita Aires and Julia Kramer

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Rita Aires and Julia Kramer are co-first authors on ‘ Axolotl mandible regeneration occurs through mechanical gap closure and a shared regenerative program with the limb’, published in DMM. Rita is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Tatiana Sandoval-Guzmán at the Center for Healthy Aging (University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany). She is passionate about development and regeneration, and in establishing new animal models for their study. Julia is a Specialist in oral and maxillofacial surgery in the lab of Günter Lauer at the Clinic of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany). Her focus is on the development, regeneration and oncology of the head and neck region.