Hans-Georg Rammensee accepted to the Leopoldina Academy of Sciences

Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Rammensee is inducted into the Leopoldina Academy of Sciences for his extraordinary achievements in immunology, in particular the analysis of infection- and cancer-associated peptides and the development work on personalized cancer vaccination. Prof. Rammensee and his team have done international pioneering work with the elucidation of the recognition mechanisms of T cells in the human immune system. In addition, he is considered one of the pioneers of mRNA vaccination. His talent pool includes PhD students such as Dr. Harpreet Singh, co-founder of Immatics, Dr. Ingmar Hörr, co-founder of CureVac, and Prof. Dr. Juliane Walz, who is currently conducting research on the jointly developed promising vaccine candidate (CoVac-1), a corona vaccine especially for immunocompromised patients.

Rammensee's research work is also concerned with the development of vaccines. He already made extraordinary achievements in this field more than 30 years ago:
With colleagues Prof. Dr. Günther Jung and Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Wiesmüller, he was able to show that a component of the bacterial cell membrane can be used as a vaccine booster to induce peptide-specific T cells against the influenza virus. Also together with Prof. Jung as well as Dr. Ingmar Hörr and Dr. Reinhard Obst, he laid the scientific basis for a method to produce mRNA vaccines more than 20 years ago. Therefore, the development of an effective mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 is also based on many years of research by the team around the Tübingen scientist. The German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina is the oldest scientific and medical learned society in the German-speaking world and the oldest permanently existing natural science academy worldwide. He is delighted to be accepted into the academy: "The Leopoldina is an outstanding institution. I feel honored to now be a member."

Another approach is to immunize with the virus-specific peptides recognized by T cells. Peptide vaccinations have not worked efficiently in humans so far. However, if the peptides are combined with the aforementioned vaccine booster - developed in Tübingen - which specifically and effectively activates the immune system, strong T cell responses are also obtained in humans. These T cells can then kill virus-infected cells and stimulate B cells to produce antibodies against the virus. One of Prof. Rammensee's goals is to be able to apply findings from basic research clinically as quickly as possible in order to develop innovative therapeutic approaches and individualized production of modern drugs for the treatment of cancer or for immunotherapies.

Prof. Rammensee is also one of three spokespersons of the so-called "Image-Guided and Functionally Instructed Tumor Therapies" (iFIT) Cluster of Excellence, a research consortium funded by the German Research Foundation. As the only oncological cluster of excellence in Germany, its scientists are conducting research into individualized and innovative cancer therapies, including cancer peptide vaccines.

He has already accompanied three start-ups from his department, CureVac, Immatics Biotechnologies and Synimmune. "You have to give young researchers the freedom to actually develop in the direction of founding a company, if that's what they want," says Rammensee. Encourage, support and critically accompany is his guiding principle.

(Source: Press release UKT)

Hans-Georg Rammensee is Principal Investigator in Research Area C.

After Ruth Ley and Andreas Peschel, Hans-Georg Rammensee is the third member of the CMFI that has been inducted into the Leopoldina.