Scientific Advisory Board
Prof. Dr. Boris Fehse
Prof. Dr. Fehse is professor for cell and gene therapy and Head of the respective Research Dept. at the Dept. of Stem Cell Transplantation, University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) in Hamburg.
From 2018 until 2020 he was the President of the German Society of Gene Therapy, speaker of the Interdisciplinary Working Group “Gene technology report” at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.
He focusses on the permanent genetic modification of target cells for clinical gene therapy (e.g. adoptive immunotherapy, HIV gene therapy), basic and clinical research. He has long-standing experience with different types of retroviral vectors; his group has introduced the popular LeGO vector platform and innovative cell marking approaches such as RGB marking and optical barcoding. They have also applied different genome-editing techniques (TALENs, CRISPR/Cas) for cell modification. Another major topic of his work has been the development of novel tools for molecular diagnostics in the context of stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy.
Dr. Hauke Simon Günther
Dr. Günther has his research focus on neurobiology (oncology and non pathology aspects) and immunology.
He is an expert in immunohistochemistry and tissue / cell conservation.
Dr. Günther is scientific advisor and senior scientist at INI-Research (lab for interdisciplinary neuro- immunology ) in Hamburg Germany.
He is co-inventor of Cell-Cover and co-founder of Anacyte Laboratories.
Prof. Dr. Christoph Merten
Prof. Dr. Merten focuses his research on the development of biomedical microfluidics technologies for drug discovery, diagnostics and personalized therapy in cancer research.
He is an associate Professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and adjunct scientist at the Ludwig Cancer Research in Lausanne.
Christoph Merten leads the laboratory for biomedical microfluidics (LBMM) within the School of Engineering. The laboratory uses droplet-based approaches to address questions related to personalized medicine, Screening (medicine).
In 2017 he co-founded Velabs Therapeutics, a biotechnology startup aiming to develop droplet microfluidics technologies for the screening of therapeutic antibodies. He is also a co-founder of TheraMe!, a consortium which aims to develop technologies allowing personalized cancer therapies.
Prof. Dr. med. Klaus Pantel
Professor Klaus Pantel is Director of the Institute of Tumor Biology and Full Professor of Medicine at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE).
His research focuses mainly on CTC/ DTC detection and characterization (CTCs: circulating tumour cells/ DTCs: disseminated tumour cells). He is also interested in the improvement of cancer diagnostics of a variety of cancers like the development of blood diagnostic tests for CTCs and circulating DNA/ microRNA (‘liquid biopsy’) and the identification and characterization of novel biomarkers in clinical studies. Further topics of his research are tumour-stroma interactions, tumour immunology and the identification and functional characterization of metastasis-associated genes.
Prof Pantel is member of the Executive Board of the University Cancer Center Hamburg – Hubertus Wald Tumor Center – and Coordinator of the Oncology Research Program at UKE. He is Chairman of the European Liquid Biopsy Society and Visiting Professor at the University of Bergen.
Prof Pantel is also member of the German Cancer Society, American Association for Cancer Research and European Academy for Tumour Immunology. Furthermore, he is recipient of various awards (including the German Cancer Award 2010 and the AIO Medical Oncology Award 2008) and recipient of two ERC Advanced Investigator Grants.
Dr. Clemens Wülfing
Dr Wülfing is the founder and managing director of INI Research gGmbH and as the Wirkung group leader he concentrates on his scientific profession with the focus on bi-directional communication between the nervous and immune systems in the context of psychoneuroimmunology.
He has established and expanded cooperation with the University of Hamburg, UKE and the university of Essen, so that INI Research now has established many joined Research Projects.
Dr Wülfing also takes over interdisciplinary courses for the Department of Biology and the Departement of Psychology working as a lecturer in the MINT faculty at the University of Hamburg.
Dr. Wülfing is also founder and managing director of MB GmbH and MBE GmbH and co-founder of Anacyte.
