Speakers

Find out who you can discuss the latest updates and results with on the spot and where they are from…

The 55th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Immunology (DGfI) will feature two outstanding invited speakers whose work has profoundly shaped modern immunology.

We are especially honored to welcome Professor Shimon Sakaguchi, recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine, awarded for his groundbreaking discoveries on peripheral immune tolerance and regulatory T cells (Tregs).
His seminal work revealed fundamental mechanisms by which the immune system prevents harmful autoreactivity, transforming our understanding of autoimmunity, cancer, and transplantation immunology.

We are also delighted to welcome Professor Federica Sallusto, one of the world’s leading experts in human T‑cell biology. Her pioneering research on T‑cell differentiation, memory, and trafficking—including the identification of central and effector memory T cells as well as Th17 and Th22 subsets—has had a lasting impact on both basic and translational immunology.

With Professor Sakaguchi and Professor Sallusto, the 55th DGfI Annual Meeting brings together two extraordinary scientific leaders whose discoveries continue to shape the present and future of immunological research.

Jan Baumbach

Network Medicine GPT – A Foundation Model for Disease Mechanism Mining and Drug Repurposing

Joachim Schultze

Systems Immunology in Brain Health. A new frontier

Fabian Theis

Closing the loop: Generative inverse modeling for interventional single-cell biology

Veit Hornung

Detection of non-self nucleic acids by Toll-like receptors

Laura Mackay

Functional heterogeneity of tissue-resident lymphocytes

Leslie Berg

Linking variations in TCR signal strength to CD8+ T cell differentiation

Ido Amit

Leveraging Single-Cell Technologies to Engineer the Immune System 1

Charlotte M Deane

Ron Heeren

A spatial biology window on molecular immunology: Multimodal imaging from cell to tissue

Mathias Heikenwälder

Tailored modulation of the tumor micro-environment by combinatorial immune-check point treatment overcomes therapy resistance of liver cancer

Matthew Krummel

Tumors as Lenses Into Immune Archetypes

Axel Kallies

T cell stemness and exhaustion in chronic infection and cancer

Belinda Parker 

Modelling the unique bone metastasis microenvironment to find superior immunotherapeutics

Manuel Friese

Decording neuro-immune interactions in multiple sclerosis

Frauke Zipp

Therapeutic strategies at the interface between immune and nervous system

Christian Münz

Neuroinflammation after non-neurotropic herpesvirus infection

Harald Prüß

Autoantibodies in neuropsychiatric diseases — from mechanisms to novel treatments

Gerhard Krönke

Novel checkpoints controlling onset and resolution of inflammation

Eicke Latz

Christopher Buckley

Fibroblasts: master regulators of inflammation

Anja Hauser

Uncovering immune cell function in the bone marrow by advanced microscopy

Constanze Jakwerth

Early-Life Nasotypes Define Distinct Mucosal Immune States Associated with Asthma Trajectories

Christina Zielinski

Decoding the regulation of human tissue-resident T cells body-wide

Michel Gilliet

Type I IFNs in skin immunity and autoimmunity

Georg Gasteiger

(Re-)Organization of the skin lymphocyte niche through infection and inflammation

Christian Schulz

Macrophage-targeting in myocardial injury

Benjamin Youngblood

Translating epigenetic mechanisms of T cell exhaustion into durable immunotherapy

Karl Sebastian Lang

Anti-tumoral immunity induced by optimized tumor-tropic arenaviruses and its potential clinical benefits

Daniel Utzschneider

Targeting of exhausted T cells in chronic infection and cancer

Florian Leuschner

The impact of valvular heart disease on inflammation

Almudena Ramiro

Autoreactive antibodies in atherosclerosis

Federica Marelli-Berg

Cardiac autoimmunity

Michael Bader

Hormone systems in cardiovascular immunology

Hans-Joachim Anders

The immunology behind novel therapies for immune-mediated KDntation 1

Christian Kurts

Immune mechanisms underlying inflammatory and infectious kidney disease

Ulf Panzer

T-cell mediated injury in autoimmune kidney disease

Sibylle von Vietinghoff

Immune regulation by the kidney environment

Hannah Uckelmann

Targeting epigenetics regulators in leukemia development

Kathrin de la Rosa

Leveraging Antibody Repertoires for Biomarker Discovery and Innovative Prevention Strategies

Claudia Lengerke

Targeting leukemic stem cells with cellular therapies

Daniela Krause

Harnessing extracellular matrix proteins for modification of normal and malignant haematopoiesis

Silvia Knapp

Determinants of pulmonary immune homeostasis

Birgit Sawitzki

Rewiring T Cell Function in Acute Infection: Molecular Drivers of Lung Immunopathology and Post-Infectious Sequelae

Leif Sander

Distinct Immune Trajectories of Lung Injury, Fibrosis and Repair

Susana Minguet

Harnessing TCR Discoveries for the Next Generation of Immunotherapies

Marion Subklewe

Turning T-cells against AML

Elvira Mass

Developmental Programming of Tissue-Resident Macrophages

Georg Schett

Immune reset by CAR T cell therapy in autoimmune disease

Maike Hofmann

Chronic Viral Hepatitis: From T Cell Exhaustion to Adaptation and Chronic Immune Imprinting

Matteo Iannacone

Immune surveillance of the liver

Elmar Jaeckel

CAR Treg for tissue specific tolerance

Laura Pallett

Liver-resident T-cells: Master deciphers of their environment

Matthias Friedrich

Fibroblast response in intestinal inflammation and fibrosis

Emma Wetter Slack

Using oral vaccines to manipulate microbial ecology in the gut

Petra Bacher

T cell mediated immunity to fungal microbes in inflammatory bowel diseases

Jakob Zimmermann

Induction, persistence, and function of microbiota-specific CD4 T cell memory