Hans-Georg Rammensee


Hans-Georg Rammensee is a German immunologist and cancer researcher. He has been Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Immunology at the University of Tübingen since 1996. Rammensee has contributed essentially to the research fields of MHC biology and tumor immunology and to the development of cancer immunotherapies.

Life

Rammensee studied Biology at the University of Tübingen and worked as a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen. After gaining his doctorate in 1982 he initially worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA. In 1985 he moved as a scientific member to the Basel Institute for Immunology, Basel, Switzerland. Two years later Rammensee returned to Max Planck Institute for Biology as a group leader at the department of immunogenetics. 1993 he became head of department at the Tumor-Virus-Immunology Section of the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany. The same year he was appointed professor at the Faculty of Theoretical Medicine of Heidelberg University. He has been a Full Professor at the University of Tübingen and Chair of the Department of Immunology at the Institute for Cell Biology since 1996.

Research

Since the late 1970s, Rammensee has been focusing on immunology with the specific aim of using tumor immunology to fight against cancer. He has contributed to genetics and immune regulation as well as to the understanding of minor H antigens, T cells and the major histocompatibility complex. His group has systematically developed bioinformatics tools for this purpose. In recent years, Rammensee has combined basic research on MHC biology with translational research, thus bringing tumor immunology into clinical practice. Currently he is focusing on the development of individualized cancer immunotherapy.
In 2000 and 2010, Rammensee co-founded three research-based companies. Immatics is involved in the development of cancer immunotherapies, CureVac develops therapies based on messenger RNA ; synimmune on recombinant antibodies.

Awards