Friday, October 12, 2018 at 17:00 in auditorium F
Lecture given by Professor Stefan H.E. KAUFMANN
Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany
Professor Stefan Kaufmann is founding director and member of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, where he chairs the Department of Immunology. A world-renowned researcher in tuberculosis immunology, he made pioneering contributions in the field of cellular immunology to bacterial infections. One of his most important findings is the identification of the role of CD8 T lymphocytes in protection against intracellular bacterial infections. He and his group also elucidated the antigen presentation pathways for CD8 T cell stimulation in bacterial infections and identified cross-priming as a critical step in this process. These findings have formed the basis for the development of a new vaccine against tuberculosis. Unlike BCG, which induces a CD4 T cell response only, this new recombinant vaccine stimulates a broader T cell response involving both CD4 and CD8 T cells, thus opening very promising therapeutic perspectives for better control of tuberculosis.
A contributor to over 900 papers with more than 60,000 citations, Stefan Kaufmann has received multiple awards and prizes and has served in numerous scientific and policy advisory roles, including to the German Ministry of science and technology, WHO, the European Union, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
On October 12, he received the "Gagna A. & Ch. Van Heck Prize", one of the most prestigious Belgian awards in biomedical science.
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