Executive board 2025-2026 About us

Reinhold Förster has been Full Professor of Immunology and Head of the Institute of Immunology at the Hannover Medical School since 2001. Prof. Förster is an internationally renowned expert on chemokines. Using gene targeting in mice, he has published fundamental work on the function of chemokine receptors such as CXCR5, CCR9 and CCR7 as well as ACKR4. He identified molecular mechanisms that control the migration of immune cells to and their positioning in lymphoid organs and investigated the role of steady-state turnover of dendritic cells in the induction of peripheral tolerance. In addition, he and his colleagues used 2-photon in vivo microscopy to investigate cell-cell interactions in the priming of immune cells and the killing of cytotoxic T cells. This enabled them to gain fundamentally new insights into the processes that control the settlement of immune cells in the lymph nodes. More recently, he investigated immune responses after immunisation with COVID-19 vaccines and in COVID-19 patients. Reinhold Förster was a member of six DFG-funded collaborative research centres and is co-spokesperson of the RESIST (Resolving Infection Susceptibility) cluster of excellence at Hannover Medical School.

Reinhold Förster has been Full Professor of Immunology and Head of the Institute of Immunology at the Hannover Medical School since 2001. Prof. Förster is an internationally renowned expert on chemokines. Using gene targeting in mice, he has published fundamental work on the function of chemokine receptors such as CXCR5, CCR9 and CCR7 as well as ACKR4. He identified molecular mechanisms that control the migration of immune cells to and their positioning in lymphoid organs and investigated the role of steady-state turnover of dendritic cells in the induction of peripheral tolerance. In addition, he and his colleagues used 2-photon in vivo microscopy to investigate cell-cell interactions in the priming of immune cells and the killing of cytotoxic T cells. This enabled them to gain fundamentally new insights into the processes that control the settlement of immune cells in the lymph nodes. More recently, he investigated immune responses after immunisation with COVID-19 vaccines and in COVID-19 patients. Reinhold Förster was a member of six DFG-funded collaborative research centres and is co-spokesperson of the RESIST (Resolving Infection Susceptibility) cluster of excellence at Hannover Medical School.