Barbara graduated from the LM-University Munich and performed a doctoral thesis in veterinary physiology. Then she worked as an assistant (private clinics) and as a resident in small animal internal medicine (University of Zurich). From 1994 till 1996 she performed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

Since 1996 Barbara works at the Small Animal Clinic of the Freie Universität Berlin, since 2003 as Professor of Small Animal Internal Medicine. Since 2003 she is vice director or deputy director of the Clinic. She has published more than 220 peer-reviewed articles and 33 book chapters, is editor of a journal and of 3 textbooks (haematology & transfusion medicine, canine diseases, feline diseases), lectures regularly at national and international courses and conferences, and is member of numerous professional veterinary organizations. Her main interests are infectious diseases, clinical immunology, hematology, transfusion medicine, and gastrointestinal diseases.