CCU Neuroimmunology and Brain Tumor Immunology
Our Team
© D170
Group Leader
Prof. Michael Platten, MD
Prof. Michael Platten, MD
Group Leader & Chairman, Neurology Department, University Hospital Mannheim
Contact:
Phone:
+49 621 3832885
Fax:
+49 621 3833807
Claudia Koch
Claudia Koch
UMM Secretary
Phone:
+49 621 3832885
Fax:
+49 621 3833807
Marie-Christine Wagner, PhD
Marie-Christine Wagner, PhD
Project management DKFZ
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3837
Phone 3:
+49 6221 42 3849
Jennifer Schmidt
Jennifer Schmidt
Secretary
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3144
Fax:
+49 6221 42 4625
Scientists
Michael Breckwoldt, MD, PhD
Michael Breckwoldt, MD, PhD
Michael is a physician-scientist (MD, PhD) and post doc in the lab. Moreover, he is also a clinical resident in the department of neuroradiology (University Clinic Heidelberg). He is interested in “molecular imaging” using high field MRI (9.4 T) of Multiple sclerosis and glioma models, e.g. to image inflammation with iron oxide nanoparticles. Besides Michael is using correlative optical methods (2-Photon, confocal and ultramicroscopy of cleared specimen) to validate MR imaging findings. His projects are supported by the SFB 1389 (“Unite Glioblastoma”) and the Else Kröner Fresenius Stiftung.
Phone:
+49 6221 5636436
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Lukas Bunse, MD
Lukas Bunse, MD
Lukas is physician scientist at University Hospital Mannheim and joined the lab in 2012. During his medical thesis he worked on glioma specific immunotherapy and continued to work on immunomodulatory oncometabolites in gliomas during his PhD thesis. With his general interest in novel immunotherapeutic strategies for neurologic diseases, he was trained at Medical Faculty Heidelberg, Heidelberg University, Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Harvard Medical School, and at Institute of Neurology, University College London. His training and research have been funded by DFG, EKFS, University Faculty Mannheim, University Faculty Heidelberg, DKFZ, Swiss Bridge Foundation, Dres. Bayer-Foundation, Sybille Assmus Foundation, and Bayer.
Phone:
+49 6221 423859
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Theresa Bunse (nee Schumacher), PhD
Theresa Bunse (nee Schumacher), PhD
Theresa is a postdoctoral scientist who joined the lab in 2010 for her PhD thesis, during which she worked on the development of glioma-specific vaccination. She continued this work in her postdoctorate and now focuses on immune modulatory mechanisms in the glioma microenvironment during immunotherapy. Her research is funded in part by the DFG.
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3837
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Edward Green, PhD
Edward Green, PhD
Ed is a postdoctoral scientist spearheading the D170’s efforts to discover tumor-reactive TCRs, combining deep learning bioinformatics approaches with single cell repertoire analyses. Ed has created novel techniques for TCR cloning, and collaborates extensively with DKFZ’s DNA vector group to develop the next generation of ‘immunologically invisible’ plasmids for personalised cancer (immuno)therapies. Ed’s projects are funded in part by BAYER and a DKFZ-NCT joint initiative for establishing novel personalised immunotherapies.
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3859
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Katrin Huck, PhD
Katrin Huck, PhD
Katrin is a postdoctoral researcher who studied “Cell Biology and Physiology” in Frankfurt am Main and completed her PhD about the basic research of osteoporosis at the Institute of Immunology in Heidelberg. She is working on the investigation of endothelial and pericyte-derived factors mediating immune-stimulation in the context of glioma irradiation and EAE. Her project is funded by the CRC1366 “Vascular Control of Organ Function”.
Iris Mildenberger, MD
Iris Mildenberger, MD
Postdoctoral scientist and resident neurology
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3858
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Isabel Poschke, PhD
Isabel Poschke, PhD
Isabel heads the NCT immune monitoring unit, which performs high parametric immune profiling on blood and tissue samples of patients enrolled in a variety of phase I and phase II clinical trials. Our particular interest is the single cell determination of T cell functionality by flow cytometry, Elispot and high-throughput single-cell sequencing, as well as the discovery of tumor-antigen-reactive TCRs.
Phone:
+49 6221 5635210
Katharina Sahm (nee Ochs), MD
Katharina Sahm (nee Ochs), MD
Postdoctoral scientist and resident neurology
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3858
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
PhD, Master and MD Students
Bettina Amberg
Bettina is a biomedicine master student who is interested in CNS autoimmunity in multiple sclerosis. She investigates the interplay between the intestine, diet and immunomodulatory effects on multiple sclerosis.
Dennis Agardy, M.Sc.
Dennis Agardy, M.Sc.
Dennis is a PhD student who obtained his Master’s degree in Immunology and Inflammation at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He specialized in cancer immunology and immunotherapy during his stays at the Karolinska Institute and the Danish National Center for Cancer Immune Therapy. During his PhD he is investigating the role of type I interferon signaling in hypermutated glioblastomas and melanoma brain metastases and the impact on immunotherapies. With his research about the response and resistance of checkpoint inhibitors in melanoma brain metastases he is also a member of the DFG-funded RTG2099 "Hallmarks of Skin Cancer" at the University Hospital Mannheim.
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3843
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Ankita Sati Batra, M.Sc.
Ankita Sati Batra, M.Sc.
Ankita is a Doctoral Researcher in the lab whose work focusses on elucidating the role of CXCL10 in immune regulation of gliomas, which is funded through the DKFZ-MOST German-Israeli collaboration. Her efforts are also directed towards the development of AHR inhibitors in association with Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining the lab, Ankita attained her Masters in Pharmacology from University of Oxford, England.
Frederik Cichon, M.Sc.
Frederik Cichon, M.Sc.
Frederik is a former pharmaceutical technician now working as doctoral researcher. His research is focused on the identification of myeloid cell targets for cancer immunotherapy. By the implementation of state-of-the-art CRISPR technology for primary cells the results of his project have a wide scope of applications in the field of cancer research and autoimmunity. Furthermore, he is also interested in different aspects of immunosuppressive metabolism pathways in the context of tumor diseases. Frederik’s work is funded in part by Bayer HealthCare and the German Cancer Aid.
Phone:
+49 6221 423843
Fax:
+49 6221 423849
Alice De Roia, M.Sc.
Alice De Roia, M.Sc.
Alice is a PhD student working in close collaboration with the DNA Vector Laboratory at the DKFZ towards the development of adoptive T-cell therapy using novel non-viral systems for glioma patients. Her project focuses on T-cell engineering with the following aims: the augmentation of T-cell efficacy and their specific targeting to the brain along with the development of tracking technologies to allow the identification and localisation of recombinant T-Cells within the body.
Mirco Friedrich
Mirco Friedrich
Mirco is a MD/PhD student working on metabolic reprogramming of tumor-associated myeloid cells. Furthermore, he started showing interest in negative regulators of T cell signaling and genome editing of autologous T cells during a stay at Harvard Medical School. His work is funded via the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Excellence Initiative of the German Research Foundation (DFG). In 2018, he received the Young Investigator Award by the European Association of Neuro-Oncology (EANO).
Phone:
+49 6221 423842
Fax:
+49 6221 423849
Markus Hahn
Markus is a MD student from Heidelberg University who started in the lab beginning January 2020. He is particularly interested in factors modulating the glioma epigenome. Furthermore he is investigating tumor-associated myeloid cell differentiation. He gained additional clinical experience at the University of Paris VII.
Jessica Hunger, M.Sc.
PhD student
Michael Kilian, M.Sc.
Michael Kilian, M.Sc.
Michael Kilian is a PhD student in the lab who started in 2017. As a graduate student in molecular biotechnology at the Offringa Lab (DKFZ), he gained a research interest in immuno-oncology that he is further pursuing in his PhD projects. Michael is specifically interested in innate immune cells and the tumor-immunity interface as well as novel approaches of neoantigen-specific immunotherapy. His work is sponsored by The Helmholtz International Graduate School for Cancer Research.
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3842
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Christopher Krämer
Christopher is a MD student working on the functional role of MHC II in immunotherapy of glioblastomas. His project is funded by the Mildred-Scheel Doctoral Programme of the German Cancer Aid.
Katharina Lindner, M.Sc.
Katharina Lindner, M.Sc.
Katharina is a PhD student working on the development of personalized immunotherapies against glioblastoma. She is part of a team that develops a high-throughput pipeline to identify tumor-specific T-cell receptors from patients’ samples, where she is focussing on the acquisition of data from patient samples and the development of assays to identify tumor-specific immunogenic antigens.
Phone:
+49 6221 5632416
Kevin Lu
Kevin Lu
Kevin is an MD student and joined the lab in 2017. He works on the immune regulatory role of NK cells in gliomas and the identification of tumor associated antigens as target structures for immune therapy.
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3845
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Ivana Osredek
Bachelor internship
Kira Pfleiderer
After gaining her first research experiences in Cancer Radiation at the Johns Hopkins Univeristy, Kira Pfleiderer, a MD student, started her project focusing on MRI monitoring as response prediction in gliomas. Her research includes new therapeutical approaches with nanoparticles activating the myeloid compartment.
Khwab Sanghvi, M.Sc.
Khwab Sanghvi, M.Sc.
Khwab is a Doctoral Researcher working on developing a workflow for identification and functional testing of T-cell receptors against neo-antigens in glioma, namely mutant IDH1 – a driver mutation in low grade gliomas. He is interested in developing a CD4+ T-cell based immunotherapy against gliomas. Khwab is also a member of the DKFZ PhD Council for 2019 and has also represented DKFZ at the level of the Helmholtz Association through the Helmholtz Juniors.
Phone:
+49 6221 423859
Fax:
+49 6221 423849
Chin Leng Tan, M.Sc.
Chin Leng is a PhD student in our lab who is interested in the identification of tumour-reactive T cell receptors (TCRs). By harnessing the power of single-cell sequencing and bioinformatics tools, he tries to determine the signature of tumour reactivity either in term of transcriptomic profile or CDR3 regions of TCR. His works involve both human and mouse TCR from glioblastoma and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3859
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Verena Turco
Verena Turco
Verena is a MD student working on the mechanisms of response to immune-checkpoint blockade in glioma. Moreover, she is also interested in harnessing innate immunity in glioma therapy. Her project is funded by the Mildred-Scheel Doctoral Programme of the German Cancer Aid.
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3848
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Xin-Wen Zhang
Xin-Wen Zhang
Xin-Wen works as MD student in the lab and focuses on identifying mechanisms to enhance the efficiency of dendritic cell based vaccination in melanoma. Furthermore, she is also interested on the effects of local irradiation on the T-cell immunity in malignant glioma. Her project is funded by the Mildred-Scheel Doctoral Programme of the German Cancer Aid.
Phone:
+49 6221 42 3845
Fax:
+49 6221 42 3849
Maximilian Zuber
Maximilian Zuber
Maximilian is a MD student working on the identification of regulators for intratumoral polarization of TAMs, including CRISPR gene editing. In addition, he is investigating the tumor microenvironment (in particular TAMs) as a target in glioma therapy.
Technical Assistance
Celina Geiß
Celina is a Master student in the Molecular Biotechnology programme at the Heidelberg University. She worked as an intern on various TCR cloning projects and now supports the Immunogenomics Team as a student assistant where she implements a robotic-based workflow to automate high-throughput TCR screenings. She is passionate about immunological questions and wants to approach personalised cancer therapies from a bioinformatics and experimental perspective.
Gordon Haltenhof
Kristine Jähne
Kristine Jähne
Kristine is a technician working on H3.3.K27M-specific immunotherapy as well as on the identification of immunotherapeutic targets within the glioma microenvironment. Her main task is understanding the role of AhR in different tumor models together with the Bayer Joint Lab.
Phone:
+49 6221 423848
Fax:
+49 6221 423849
Stefanie Jung
Technician trainee
Simone Karcher-Bausch
Simone Karcher-Bausch
MTA
Phone:
+49 621 3831132
Fax:
+49 6221 423849
Alexander Santel, M.Sc.
Technician
Alumni
Alexander Allen
Alina Siebenmorgen, B.Sc.
Anna von Landenberg
Anne Hertenstein, MD
Chiara Redaelli, PhD
Felix Sahm
Katrin Deumelandt, PhD
Iris Oezen, PhD
Jana Sonner, PhD
Jennifer Reiert
Jens Blobner
Julian Röwe, Phd
Katharina Rauschenbach
Martina Ott, PhD
Melanie Keil, PhD
Özen Sercan-Alp, PhD
Philipp Münch
Rainer Koch
Ruxandra Tudoran, MD
Sadanand Gaikwad, PhD
Sarah Heß
Simon Becker
Toman Bortecen
Ulrike Litzenburger, PhD
Viridiana Perez Montessoro, M.Sc.