Get to know Dr. Florian Wimmers

We are pleased to present Dr. Florian Wimmers, Emmy Noether Research Group Leader at the University of Tuebingen. Over the course of his more than ten-year career, Dr. Wimmers has advanced the fields of computational biology, multi-omics analysis, and immunological research. He just won the Robert Koch Postdoctoral Award in Immunology 2023 for his work in human translational immunology, which is primarily focused on the fields of infectious illnesses, cancer, and vaccination. The Systems Immunology Lab at the University of Tübingen, which is a component of the "Image-Guided and Functionally Instructed Tumor Therapies" (iFIT) cluster of excellence, is now led by Dr. Wimmers.

At the Systems Immunology Lab, Dr. Wimmers and his team focus on researching the immune response to vaccines in individuals with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients. The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the vulnerability of these patients to infectious diseases, with vaccines often being less effective for them. Supported by a DFG Emmy Noether grant, Dr. Wimmers and his team are investigating how the immune system in cancer patients reacts to infections and vaccinations, aiming to understand the underlying mechanisms that compromise their immune response. This knowledge is crucial for developing new, effective vaccination strategies. To achieve their goal, Dr. Wimmers and his team use high-dimensional omics tools paired with artificial intelligence-supported analyses to generate in-depth profiles of the immune cell landscape at single-cell resolution. Linked with functional and clinical data, these maps provide deep insights into the machinery of the immune system at work and inspire novel treatment approaches.

We are excited to welcome Dr. Florian Wimmers to the iFIT team and are looking forward to the innovative work in immunology that he and his colleagues will lead and contribute to. If you want to learn more about his research, visit his lab website: https://thewimmerslab.com/