How the LIT is developing tomorrow’s immunotherapies from Nobel Prize topics – Interview with Prof. Dr. Philipp Beckhove

The Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy (LIT) is working on immunotherapies based, among other things, on research conducted by Japanese scientist Shimon Sakaguchi. The immunologist at Osaka University is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the LIT and, together with Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, received this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Prof. Dr. Philipp Beckhove, Scientific Director at the LIT, explains in an interview with the Science Blog of the University of Regensburg what influence Sakaguchi’s discovery of “peripheral” immune tolerance, in particular regulatory T cells (Tregs), had on immunology, how the collaboration with Shimon Sakaguchi came about, and how the new findings are paving the way for future immunotherapies.

The LIT works closely with the University of Regensburg (UR) and the University Hospital Regensburg (UKR) and brings together interdisciplinary research on immunological mechanisms and their clinical application. Since its admission to the Leibniz Association in 2022, the LIT has seen itself as a bridge between basic research and patient-oriented therapy development – from autoimmune diseases and chronic inflammation to innovative immunotherapies against cancer.