Tim Sparwasser

Biography

Professor Dr. Tim Sparwasser is the director of the Institute of Infection Immunology. His research focus lies in host-pathogen interaction with focus on pattern recognition via dendritic cells (DC) and immune regulation through regulatory T cells. Long-term goal of his research work is to understand immune evasion mechanisms of microbial pathogens and development of new approaches to optimize vaccinations. Tim Sparwasser studied human medicine in Mainz (doctor`s degree at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University Mainz), Basel, New York and Munich. As post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Medical Microbiology (Technical University Munich) he was able to identify bacterial CpG DNA as stimulus for cells of the innate immune system. He received the "Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Postdoctoral Fellowship for Physicians" and studied the role of the innate immune system in HIV infection at the HHMI in New York (Skirball Institute, NY University). In 2002 Tim Sparwasser returned to Munich where he established his own research group at the TU Munich. He received his habilitation in Medical Microbiology and completed the board certification in Microbiology and Infection Epidemiology in 2008. Since September 2008 he is Professor for Infection Immunology at Hannover Medical School.

Research Interest

Infection Immunology