[1] At the beginning of his scientific career Meinhold-Heerlein worked with John C. Reed at The Burnham Institute (La Jolla / USA), where he investigated mechanisms to induce aptoptosis and to overcome chemotherapy resistance of ovarian cancer.
Meinhold-Heerlein and coworkers showed that poorly differentiated ovarian cancer harbors p53 mutations to a higher extent than hitherto assumed.
[4] Together with Garret Hampton, Meinhold-Heerlein performed oligonucleotide array analyses and identified novel molecular markers suitable as therapeutic targets.
After returning to Germany, Meinhold-Heerlein continued his research at the University of Kiel with funding from the Deutsche Krebshilfe (German Cancer Aid).
[6][7][8] Currently, in collaboration with Ahmad Hussain and Stefan Barth, he focuses on immunological approaches called theranostics to detect and eliminate ovarian cancer as well as endometriosis.