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Institute of Clinical Microbiology,
Immunology and Hygiene

University Hospital of Erlangen and
Friedrich-Alexander-University (FAU) Erlangen-Nürnberg

Wasserturmstr. 3/5
D-91054 Erlangen, Germany

Lab Website:

www.schoberlab.de

Research Interests:

The Schober lab aims at understanding and engineering human T cell immunity.

Natural immunity has co-evolved with pathogens for millions of years, and the adoptive transfer of T cells represents an exciting new field of medicine for the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer.

Like the field of biomimetics, we take a biology-driven approach to develop immunotherapeutic applications. Using clinical samples from healthy volunteers after routine vaccinations and from patients undergoing adoptive T cell therapy, we study T cell immunity in human in vivo model systems.

We then investigate the composition and evolution of antigen-specific T cell responses over space and time. To this end, we use state-of-the-art T cell receptor (TCR) sequence and phenotypic analyses on the single-cell level, as well as bioinformatic approaches in collaboration with machine-learning experts.

Understanding the in vivo behaviour of physiological T cells provides us with blueprints for engineering. We use advanced tools such as CRISPR/Cas9 to genetically engineer T cells in a precise fashion.

We believe that such physiological Advanced Genetically Engineered T cells (AGEnTs) can combine the therapeutic efficacy and safety profile of physiological T cells with the versatility of cell engineering, so we can develop better therapies for patients with infectious diseases and cancer.