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Reinhold Förster ist seit 2001 ordentlicher Professor für Immunologie und Leiter des Instituts für Immunologie an der Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover.

Prof. Förster ist ein international anerkannter Experte für Chemokine. Mit Hilfe von Gen-Targeting in Mäusen hat er grundlegende Arbeiten über die Funktion von Chemokinrezeptoren wie CXCR5, CCR9 und CCR7 sowie ACKR4 veröffentlicht. Er identifizierte molekulare Mechanismen, die die Wanderung von Immunzellen zu und ihre Positionierung in lymphatischen Organen steuern, und untersuchte die Rolle des steady-state turnover dendritischer Zellen in der Induktion peripherer Toleranz. Darüber hinaus untersuchten er und seine Kollegen mit Hilfe der 2-Photonen-In-vivo-Mikroskopie die Zell-Zell-Interaktionen beim Priming von Immunzellen und bei der Abtötung zytotoxischer T-Zellen. Dadurch konnten sie grundlegend neue Erkenntnisse über die Prozesse gewinnen, die die Ansiedlung von Immunzellen in den Lymphknoten steuern. In jüngerer Zeit untersuchte er Immunantworten nach Immunisierung mit COVID-19-Impfstoffen und bei COVID-19-Patienten.

Reinhold Förster war Mitglied in sechs DFG-geförderten Sonderforschungsbereichen und ist Co-Sprecher des Exzellenz-Clusters RESIST (resolving infection susceptibility) an der Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover. 

Hansjörg Schild studied Human Biology in Marburg and received his PhD in Human Biology in 1990 from the Philipps University Marburg and the Max-Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen (Germany) working in the group of Hans-Georg Rammensee. After a 3-year postdoc with Mark Davis at Stanford University (USA) from 1990 – 1993 (supported by a fellowship from the German Research Council), he worked as a group leader at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. In 1996 he moved to Tübingen and stayed as a group leader at the Institute for Cell Biology, Dept. of Immunology (Head Prof. Rammensee) until 2003. In 2003 he accepted the offer to head the Institute for Immunology at the University Medical Centre in Mainz as full professor. Hansjörg contributed significantly to the understanding of MHC class I antigen presentation pathways and antigen recognition by cytotoxic T cells. His work now focuses on the understanding of immune regulatory mechanisms and the development of antigen-specific immunotherapies. Hansjörg was the chairman of the Immunology Research Center in Mainz from 2008 until 2017, when he became the Vice-Dean for Research at the University Medical Centre. Since 2020, he also holds the position as Deputy Chief Scientific Officer. Since 2018 he is also the speaker of the Collaborative Research Center 1292 of the German Research Council (DFG) and a selected member of the board of Directors of the Helmholtz Institute for Translational Oncology in Mainz. Hansjörg has been a member of the DFG review board 204 (Microbiology, Virology, Immunology) and the German Society for Immunology, serves in several scientific advisory boards and is, since 2018, a member of the committee for research infrastructures of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat). He also serves as a reviewer and member of selection panels of many international grant agencies, scientific award panels and major scientific journals. Hansjörg authors more than 200 publications in scientific journals, holds several international patents and has cofounded Immatics Inc. in 2000.

Christine S. Falk, Dr. rer.nat., is full professor for Transplant Immunology and director of the Institute of Transplant Immunology at Hannover Medical School (MHH) since 2011. In her research, she focusses on mechanisms of ischemia/reperfusion injury and its consequences for innate and adaptive immunity, especially tissue-resident T and NK cells in the context of solid organ transplantation, primarily lung, heart and kidney transplantation. Christine Falk graduated with her PhD from the Institute of Immunology at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, in the field of tumor immunology and continued her work on T and NK cell recognition of solid tumors as postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Molecular Immunology, Helmholtz Centre for Environment and Health (HMGU) in Munich. In 2004, she received her Venia Legendi at LMU for Human Immunology with a strong focus on the influence of the tumor microenvironment on anti-tumor immunity. From 2006 to 2010, she worked at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, as group leader of the Research Group “Immune Monitoring” with a strong interest in the improvement of cancer immunotherapy by understanding the mechanisms involved in treatment resistance.
Christine Falk has a long-term research interest in transplant and tumor immunology and the interface to infectious diseases in solid organ transplantation. Major aspects of her research are tissue-resident lymphocytes and the identification of “common denominators” of tumor vs. organ rejection and protection from infection. She published more than 110 peer articles in international peer-reviewed journals and received the Walter Schulz award for Tumor Immunology. At MHH, she is trust lecturer of the DFG, member of dissertation and research committees. Since 2014, she serves as board member of the German Cancer Aid Foundation (Dt. Krebshilfe), member for the Erwin-Schrödinger Prize of the “Science Award of the German Stifterverband”, and editorial board member of several journals and since 2019 as member of the Hochschulrat of the Leibniz University, Hannover.

Carsten Watzl studierte Biologie in Heidelberg. Während seiner Promotion am Deutschen Krebsforschungszentrum in Heidelberg in der Abteilung von Peter Krammer beschäftigte er sich mit der Signaltransduktion des CD95 (APO-1/Fas) Rezeptors. Als Postdoktorand ging er in die USA, um in der Gruppe von Eric Long am NIH (National Institutes of Health) die Funktion von Natürlichen Killerzellen zu untersuchen. Anschließend kam er als Nachwuchsgruppenleiter am Institut für Immunologie der Universität Heidelberg zurück nach Deutschland, wo er sich weiter mit dem Thema der Natürlichen Killerzellen beschäftigte und an der medizinischen Fakultät der Universität Heidelberg habilitierte. Im Jahre 2008 gründete er den Arbeitskreis NK Zelle innerhalb der DGfI und war bis 2015 der Sprecher des Arbeitskreises. Er folgte im Jahre 2011 einen Ruf an das Leibniz Institut für Arbeitsforschung an der TU Dortmund (IfADo), wo er als wissenschaftlicher Direktor die Abteilung Immunologie leitet.