Christian Bär is Professor of Regenerative Cardiology. His position is a joint professorship between the Hannover Medical School and the Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology and Experimental Medicine, which places him in an idea setting to combine basic and applied science. The major focus of his research group lies in identifying functional non-coding RNAs which play crucial roles in the processes of neonatal heart regeneration as well as cardiac ageing. Since telomere biology is directly associated with ageing and regeneration his group also studies the link between non-codong RNAs and telomere dynamics. The overarching goal is the therapeutic exploitation of ncRNA and telomere biology aiming to enhance mammalian cardiomyocyte proliferation, thus boosting cardiac regeneration to combat heart disease. To do so, his group has establishes a number of animal models and 3D (stem)cell culture models.