Dr. Benjamin Ruf receives Fritz and Ursula Melchers Postdoctoral Prize 2024

🥳And another one! 👏 Congratulations to Benjamin Ruf, M.D. on receiving his second award this year!

🔬 During his postdoctoral research, Benjamin focused on elucidating the role of mucosa-associated invariant (MAIT) T cells in the context of cancer, particularly liver cancer. In his most recent work on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), he used an AI-supported systems biology approach to uncover a particularly important role of these cells, which could be important regulators in the body's own defense against tumors. Instead, however, they are functionally silenced in the liver tumor microenvironment through interaction with tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) that carry the immune checkpoint molecule PD-L1 on their surface. This work suggests that MAIT cells are potential new target cells for immune checkpoint therapy of HCC.

🏆 The German Society for Immunology awards the Fritz and Ursula Melchers Postdoctoral Prize to one of its members once a year. The prize, endowed with € 2,000, is awarded to postdoctoral researchers up to 35 years of age for their work to date in the field of immunology.