KLINIKUM DER UNIVERSITAT MUNCHEN (KUM) LMU Affiliated Entity

Munich, Germany

Klinikum der Universität München (KUM) is one of Germany's leading medical centers, located in Munich. Renowned for its state-of-the-art facilities and cutting-edge research, KUM offers comprehensive medical care across various specialties. The hospital is affiliated with the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, ensuring a strong connection between patient care, research, and education. KUM is dedicated to providing high-quality healthcare services, advancing medical knowledge, and training the next generation of healthcare professionals.

At the Division of Clinical Pharmacology we are interested in basic principles that modulate innate and adaptive immune responses and can be used to make immunotherapeutic strategies against cancer and viral infections more effective. The research group of Dr. Rothenfusser focuses thereby on four topics: genetic and non-genetic factors that affect and predict individual responses to viral infections and vaccinations; sensing-mechanisms of viral infection by innate immunity; therapy of tumors with immunostimulatory nucleic acids, and the molecular understanding of primary immune deficiency syndromes.

Project Team

Prof. Dr. Simon Rothenfusser

Dr. Simon Rothenfusser (MD) is a Professor for Immunopharmacology in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at KUM. He holds an MD degree from the LMU and did his medical thesis at the University of Freiburg. He completed a residency in gastroenterology and did a postdoc at the UMass Medical School in Worcester, USA. Clinically he cares for adult patients with primary immunodeficiencies. In Yellow4FLAVI, Simon Rothenfusser leads the Work Package 2 which aims to identify factors responsible for variation in the individual immune response to YFV17D with a focus on the effects of preexposure to other flaviviruses

Dr. Maria Bengoa

I completed a Degree in Biology from the University of Oviedo (Spain) and a Master’s in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Salamanca (Spain). I have always had a great interest in biomedical research with the aim of contributing to science and the improvement of human health. I found vaccine research to be an interesting and effective field, which is why I became part of the BactiVax program funded by EU Horizon 2020 under Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions, where I gained invaluable experience in both academic and industrial settings. During my PhD, my role in this program involved producing and characterizing tuberculosis antigens with a focus on analyzing host-pathogen interactions and immunogenicity. Currently, I am working as Postdoctoral Researcher in Prof. Rothenfußer's group at the University Hospital Munich, working on the YELLOW4FLAVI project. This project focuses on deconstructing the protective immunity of the yellow fever virus 17D to inform the design of vaccines for flaviviruses.

Helen Stirling

I completed my bachelor's degree in medical sciences at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a master's in human biology at LMU in Munich. During my master’s thesis, I investigated cell adherence, entry and endocytosis upon YF17D infection through imaging experiments. My PhD project will focus on isolating antibodies produced following YF17D vaccination and sequencing their corresponding BCRs to interrogate B cell epitope specificity. In my free time, I can be found hiking, cycling or climbing my way around the Alps and beyond.

Project tasks

Work Package 2 Lead: Identification of host factors that predict and influence the vaccine response to YF17D

Task 2.1. Lead: Recruiting and collecting samples from new European cohorts vaccinated with YF17D
Task 2.3. Lead: Quantification and serological characterisation of the vaccine response to YF17D in the collected cohorts
Task 2.4. Lead: Investigate host factors that predict and influence the vaccine response to YF17D
Task 2.5. Serologically characterise cohorts exposed to WNV and Usutu Virus
Task 2.6. Test factors hypothesised to influence the response to flaviviruses based on the analysed cohort data in animal models of flavivirus infection

Work Package 3 Long‐term protective memory response after vaccination

Task 3.1. Analysis of number, phenotype, epitope-specificity and B cell receptor repertoire profile of YFV and TBE memory B cells
Task 3.2. Lead: Cloning of neutralising antibodies and interrogation of binding sites
Task 3.4. Phenotypic, metabolic and functional analysis of memory T cells