LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN (LMU MUENCHEN)

I’m a Professor of Experimental Immunology at the Institute for Immunology at LMU Munich. I want to understand how viral infection and vaccination influence the functionality of distinct dendritic cell subpopulations and their replenishment from precursors, because this is crucial for inducing effective long-lasting protective immunity. In my research group we want to find out how early activation of DCs and other myeloid cells in response to a live viral vaccine translates into effective T cell and antibody responses. Another aspect that we study in the lab is how the initial response to a viral stimulus influences subsequent responses of DCs and monocytes to infection and vaccination by epigenetic mechanisms. We are using mouse models as well as samples from human vaccinees to address these questions. With my research I hope to find ways to improve antiviral immunity and vaccine response.

I am a Professor of Functional Genomics and Cell Biology at the Department of Physiological Chemistry at the LMU, and at the same time I am also the group leader of Computational Epigenomics at the Institute of Computational Biology at the Helmholtz Center Munich. In my group, we are interested in the development of new computational methods for the analysis of genome-wide epigenetic data, with a strong emphasis on single-cell epigenomics. The overarching goal of my research is to better understand the role of epigenetic mechanisms in biological and biomedical processes.

I finished my Master's degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from LMU Munich during which my focus was on immunology and human biology. As a PhD student in the lab of Anne Krug, my work within the Yellow4FLAVI consortium focuses on the role of YF17D-exposed dendritic cells in the induction of different Th cell subsets.

I completed my bachelor's degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry, and my Master’s degree in Biochemistry at LMU Munich. During my Master’s studies, I focused on Virology and Immunology and performed my master’s thesis in Anne Krug’s lab. My thesis research focused on establishing an assay to perform live cell imaging in primary human dendritic cells. For my PhD, I will concentrate on completing tasks 1.2 and 1.3 and aim to uncover the mechanisms involved in endocytosis and processing of YF17D and YFWT by dendritic cells. Additionally, I will study how these mechanisms influence the subsequent T cell response during yellow fever virus vaccination.

During my Master's degree at the RWTH Aachen University, I specialized in molecular cell biology with a focus on immunology. I moved to Munich for my Master's thesis and started my PhD at LMU Munich in Anne Krug's group in 2022. In the Yellow4FLAVI consortium, my project involves the investigation of the early local innate response in human skin after YF17D infection. We investigate immune and also non-immune cells such as fibroblasts and keratinocytes in a human skin explant model.