News
research highlight: harnessing natural mutations to improve t-cell therapies
new paper: hla reduction
April 2024: HLA reduction of human T cells facilitates generation of immunologically multi-compatible cellular products. See our new paper out now in Blood Advances! For more information, also see Kilian's Thread on X.
sina wins best-presentation award
April 2024: Our fabulous PhD student Sina succeeds Katharina in winning the best-presentation award at the annual retreat of her graduate school (GRK2504) back-to-back, making sure the golden pipette stays in our lab. Watch out for her story on the metabolism of human antigen-specific T cells this year! Congratulations, Sina - well deserved!
yellow4flavi
March 2024: Yellow fever, dengue fever, tick-borne encephalitis, Japanese encephalitis and other infectious diseases, are triggered by pathogens from the flavivirus family. A very effective vaccine is available for yellow fever. The protection provided by vaccines against dengue fever, tick-borne encephalitis and Japanese encephalitis is much weaker and no vaccines are available at all for other flaviviruses. Together with 12 international partners within the context of the EU Horizon initiative our lab will investigate the secret behind the success of the yellow fever vaccine, and whether it can be transferred to other infections triggered by flaviviruses. The FAU researchers have received 727,000 euros in funding. For more information, see the FAU press release or the YELLOW4FLAVI website.
new paper, and it's a special one
March 2024: Ever wondered what would happen if you get vaccinated against the same antigen over and over again? In "The Lancet Infectious Diseases", we here report on a hypervaccinated individual from Magdeburg (HIM) who received 217 vaccinations within 29 months against SARS-CoV-2. Shared first-authorships by Katharina and Caro, and shared last-authorships by Evi and Kilian. One for the team!
WELCOME, mimi and michael!
February 2024: The lab welcomes new postdocs! Myriam ("Mimi") did her PhD in molecular parasitology at FAU and will work on flavivirus-induced T cell immunity. Michael studied the role of CD4 T cells in CNS autoimmunity for his PhD at TU Munich, and investigated tumor neo-epitopes at the DKFZ during a first postdoctoral fellowship. He will continue working on this topic in our lab. Learn more about Mimi and Michael here.
XMAS 2023
December 2023: The Schober lab celebrated the time before Christmas for a 3rd time, again with a Pub-quiz and "Secret Santa" gifts. How many pipette tips did we use in 2023? What's the origin of the name James Bond? And how do owl parrots defend themselves? Have a guess!
Caro again got carried away with the gift thing and created a Cluedo immunology game. How awesome is that?
We awish you a merry Christmas! Teaser: 2024 will bring you some exciting science!
new team photo
October 2023
Dgfi/SFI conference in strasbourg
September 2023: Wow, Strasbourg is a beautiful city. Almost the entire team was there for the joint conference of the German and French societies of Immunology. Kilian was very proud about both the poster presentation as well as the dancing capabilities of everyone.
joint lab retreat with the buchholz and vaeth labs
August 2023: We had so much fun at our joint lab retreat together with the groups of Veit Buchholz (Munich) and Martin Väth (Würzburg) in the beautiful monastery of Plankstetten. The perfect setting for exciting science, culture and some drinks. We look forward to repeating this in the future!
WELCOME, Nikolaj!
July 2023: We are extremely happy to welcome Nikolaj Pagh Kristensen as a postdoc in the team! Nikolaj holds a MSc in Immunology and Inflammation from the University of Copenhagen. He completed his PhD in the lab of Sine Reker Hadrup (Technical University of Denmark) studying antigen-specific CD8 T cells using barcode-labelled pMHC multimers. In his spare time, Nikolaj enjoys lifting weights and playing Dungeon and Dragons with his friends. To work in the Schober lab as a postdoctoral fellow, Nikolaj managed to obtain a prestigious fellowship from the Lundbeck Foundation.
latest preprint
May 2023: Can we predict T cell receptor functionality computationally? Yes, we can. Surprisingly well, actually. But only with sufficient context. Our new preprint is now online and, of course, Kilian did a twitter thread again.
best talks!
May 2023: At the retreat of the graduate school GRK2504 in beautiful Waischenfeld ("Franconian Switzerland"), Katharina and Sina finished 1st and (shared) 3rd in the "best presentation vote". Congrats!
Ciao antonino!
April 2023: We are visited by Antonino Cassotta from Federica Sallusto's lab this week and took the opportunity for a night out with (most of) the lab. We were in the Steinbach brewery, where beer is being produced since the 17th century. Antonino even dared to try the Franconian "Schäufele".
Welcome, julia and abel!
March 2023: The lab welcomes two new students. Julia studied Molecular Medicine in Freiburg and Innsbruck and joins us for her PhD. Abel is a medical doctor from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and is doing his MSc at FAU with a DAAD "leadership for Africa" scholarship. In their first weeks, the two have already left excellent impressions and we are very happy to have them on board. Learn more about Julia and Abel and the rest of the team here.
goodbye, rutuja!
February 2023: At our belated lab Xmas meeting (please admire Caro's "Secret Santa" gift, a bottle opener in the form of a T cell receptor meeting an antigen), we say goodbye to Rutuja, who will start a PhD in immune cell engineering in Dresden. Rutuja, you have impressed us all with your incredible personality. All the best to you!
new paper
December 2022: We observed an unexpected increase in IgG4 antibodies after repeated mRNA vaccination. This work is now published at Science Immunology. Special kudos to "our" first author Katharina!
We have our first gradudate!
December 2022: Soon-to-be MSc Sina Frischholz defended her thesis. With excellent mentorship by our postdoc Evi, Sina has generated an impressive amount of data to further our understanding on human T-cell metabolism in vivo. We are also really thankful to Luca Gattinoni (Regensburg) for co-supervision. Sina will continue in the lab as a PhD student within GRK2054.
GSk foundation award
July 2022: Kilian receives the GSK foundation science award in the category "clinical research" for his work on reverse T cell repertoire evolution during CMV infection. What an honor!
congrats to evi
July 2022: Evi's PhD work from the group of Angelika Rambold at the Max Planck Institute of Immunology and Epigenetics (Freiburg) is published in Nature Metabolism. Awesome!
Lab Excursion
July 2022: The team has been working super hard over the last 15 months. Time to be thankful and have some fun.
Article on BMBF website
July 2022: The BMBF's website features an article (in German) about our project to generate physiologically engineered antiviral T cells. This project is the most important funding source for our laboratory. We are extremely grateful for the support.
welcome, interns!
April 2022: Anna, Niclas and Sina are supporting the lab's team as interns. Anna is with us for 8 months in-between her MSc degree and her PhD. Niclas did a 2-month internship before starting Med School. Sina joins from Regensburg to do her MSc thesis with us.
new preprint
March 2022: New manuscript from our lab, in collaboration with the labs of Matthias Tenbusch (FAU), Ulrike Protzer (TUM), as well as many other partners from Erlangen, Munich and Cologne. We analyzed humoral and cellular immune responses after homologous vs. heterologous SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Check out the preprint for some high-quality T cell analyses by our PhD student Katharina.
Welcome, rutuja!
March 2022: Our next lab member arrived! Our postdoc Evi showed how seriously she takes mentoring and suggested that we pick Rutuja up at the train station after a long flight from India. So we did. Have a great start, Rutuja!
"Young council" of the bavarian academy of sciences
February 2022: A great honor for Kilian - he is selected into the "young council" (Junges Kolleg) of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, BAdW). Find out more about the Academy and the latest selected members here.
first paper!
December 2021: Our first paper is out at STAR Protocols! We provide a detailed protocol of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated orthotopic TCR replacement. Special kudos to Caro for her first first-authorship! Find the manuscript here.
XMAS lab quiz
December 2021: The Schober Lab celebrates the closure of its first year with a small Christmas party (all lab members freshly triple vaccinated and tested the same morning). Evi wins the first Christmas Lab Quiz - a kind of pub quiz with blind picking of prices donated by everyone (Wichteln style) - everyone agrees this likely marks the start of a long lab tradition. What a year this has been with this fantastic team. We can't wait for 2022!
Robert Koch postdoc award
October 2021: Kilian receives the Robert Koch Postdoc award by the Robert Koch Foundation in immunology. What an honour and time to be thankful! Learn more about the prizes and this year's awardees here.
Welcome evi, our first postdoc!
September 2021: The Schober Lab's first postdoc! Evi joins the team from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, and is funded by our BMBF grant. She is now excited to explore the T cell field, but will also contribute her extensive expertise in immunometabolism. We are very happy that you are with us and we are very much looking forward to working with you, Evi! Find out more about Evi's background here.
new publication: reverse phenotyping
July 2021: Our work on 'reverse phenotyping' of SARS-CoV-2 antigen-reactive T cells is published in Nature Communications. Want to find out why Schrödinger's cat may come to mind? Find out in this tweetorial on the initial pre-print. See also press releases of TUM and Helmholtz.
support through bmbf
June 2021: The Schober Lab is becoming more and more established. A fundamental basis for the lab is the support through the BMBF (junior research groups in infectious diseases program). Learn more about the program here and about our project to engineer antigen-specific T cells with physiological function here.
project funding by ekfs
April 2021: The Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung (EKFS) will fund a project on artifical intelligence-guided dissection of human antigen-specific T cell responses after yellow fever virus vaccination. The project will be carried out in collaboration with the group of Benjamin Schubert at the Helmholtz Center in Munich. Further information on the EKFS funding program can be found here. We are very grateful for the support and can't wait to get started!
The team is growing!
February 2021: Christine, Carolin, Philipp and Katharina will be joining the team in the next three months. Want to know who they are? Learn about them here. Welcome!
Jürgen wehland price
December 2020: Kilian has won the Jürgen Wehland Price 2020. The price is hosted by the Helmholtz Center for Infection research and is awarded to outstanding young scientists in the field of infection research. Read more here. Wohoo!