research

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

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.

UNDERSTANDING

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.

ENGINEERING

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.