Anja studied Biology at the Georg-August University Göttingen and obtained her PhD from Technical University Munich (TUM). Her dissertation focused on the crosstalk between the cell adhesion molecule E-cadherin and EGF receptor signalling in gastric cancer. For her post-doctoral studies, Anja moved to Cambridge (UK) where she worked on atypical K11-linked ubiquitin chains in David Komander's group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB). After four years in UK, Anja returned to Germany and joined Ivan Dikic's group at Goethe University Frankfurt. Since 2014, she is an independent group leader and head of an Emmy Noether research group funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).