The Organizers Spring School

Friederike Berberich-Siebelt

Institute for Pathology, Julius-Maximilians-University, Würzburg

 

 

 

 
 

Hyun-Dong Chang

Deutsches Rheuma-Forschungszentrum Berlin
Ein Institut der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

 

 

 

 

 
 

Jacqueline Hirscher

Deutsches Rheuma-Forschungszentrum Berlin
Ein Institut der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

 

 

 

 

 
 

Ute Hoffmann

Deutsches Rheuma-Forschungszentrum Berlin
Ein Institut der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

 

 

 

 

 
 

Bimba Hoyer

Bonn

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob Jack

Institute for Immunology and Transfusion Medicine, University of Greifswald

I studied biochemistry in Edinburgh before moving to the LMB in Cambridge for my Ph.D. which involved protein sequencing. At the end of my three years I knew I never wanted to sequence another protein ever again. However, when applying for Post.Doc. positions in all sorts of interesting labs, everyone seemed to have a protein at the back of their freezer which needed to be sequenced. In desperation I asked Cesar Milstein if he didn’t know someone who either lacked a freezer or at least was unlikely to have a protein hidden in it. He suggested I try Klaus Rajewsky in Cologne. Klaus had freezers but, thank God, no interest in sequencing any proteins. The stay in Cologne was my introduction to immunology and to developmental biology, which I followed up by moving to Walter Gehring’s group in the Biozentrum in Basel. For many years Drosophila genetics, in particular gene control by sequence specific DNA binding proteins was in the center of my interest.
However, I returned to immunology when I moved to Greifswald. There - with lots of help from the Rajewsky lab – I established the generation of knock out mice and applied this technique to the analysis of macrophage activation. We generated the LBP deficient mouse to study macrophage interaction with LPS and the IL10R1alpha knock out to study the activation of peritoneal macrophages. I retired four years ago but remain fascinated by the subtlety and complexity of the immune system.

Michael Lohoff

Institut für Medizinische Mikrobiologie and Krankhaushygiene, Marburg

I started my career by studying mathematics and physics to become a teacher. However, then I was thrown into civil service and drove an ambulance car which changed my perception of life and convinced me, to reject my own concerns and indeed study medicine, which I did in Würzburg. Here I noted that logics of mathematics was not an acceptable wish and professors continuously told me not to ask why something would be as it is, but rather accept it as general experience. This brought me a real crisis, until I met Eberhard Wecker, the father of the first cytokine to be described, who "explained" me virology. Therefter, I mainly studied as a side approach and mostly worked for my MD thesis in his lab under supervision of Anneliese Schimpl (the mother of this cytokine) to create the second hybrid monoclonal antibody (Milstein was faster).

After my examination, I was lucky to be traced towards Martin Röllinghoff in Erlangen, who taught me how well suited the German scientific landscape was for an MD to combine specialisation in Microbiology and research in Immunology. This decided my personal career. After completing my training as microbiologist and a research stay in the lab of Tak Mak in Toronto, I eventually accepted the chair position for Medical Microbiology in Marburg. In research, I have always been involved in T cell subset differentiation and the role of IRF transcription factors in this process. Immunology has always been my fascination and I have served the DGfI as my "home society", by establishing (together with others) the Ettal school, by founding and leading for about 20 years the research focus group on T cells, and finally by working as president of this society.

Barbara Schraml

Walter-Brendel-Centre of Experimental Medicine, Planegg-Martinsried

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hendrik Schulze-Koops

Rheumaeinheit Med. Poliklinik, Klinikum der Universität München