Emeritus Director Thomas Boehm joins Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen
The Research Group of Evolution of Adaptive Immunity in Vertebrates was founded under a new Emeritus Director. The group’s research emphasises the genetic foundation and evolution of the immune systems of vertebrates of different sizes, habitats, and lifestyles.
“We are very excited to have Emeritus Director Thomas Boehm bring his unique evolutionary immunology research program to our institute,” said Managing Director Prof. Dr. Ruth Ley.
Thomas Boehm is a distinguished German physician and immunobiologist renowned for his groundbreaking research on the molecular basis and evolutionary development of the immune system. He has elucidated fundamental mechanisms of T-cell development and identified the molecular basis of various immunodeficiency diseases, significantly advancing diagnostic and treatment approaches for immune disorders. Thomas Boehm’s work on adaptive immunity has been pivotal, particularly regarding the role of the thymus and the FOXN1 gene in T-cell formation. His comparative studies across various model organisms have shed light on the evolutionary transitions of immune structures over 500 million years. His research on the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) has also deepened our understanding of immune differentiation between endogenous and exogenous substances. Thomas Boehm aims to understand and potentially rectify immune system malfunctions, including efforts to induce artificial thymus tissue to combat autoimmune diseases.
In May 2024, Thomas Boehm received the Mendel Medal from the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina for his outstanding research in immunobiology. Thomas Boehm’s research uncovers the fundamentals of cellular immunity in vertebrates through in-depth research on various taxa, including anglerfish and lampreys. This knowledge lays the groundwork for a deeper understanding of immune system adaptability. Notable recipients of the Leopoldina Mendel Medal include biophysicist and Nobel Prize winner Max Delbrück (1967) and biologist Sydney Brenner (1970), who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2002. In 2022, biologist and Nobel laureate in medicine, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, was honoured with the Mendel Special Medal.
Thomas Boehm CV
Thomas Boehm studied human medicine at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and received additional training at Columbia University in New York (USA) and the Royal Marsden Hospital in London (England). Thomas Boehm graduated in Frankfurt in 1982 and qualified as a university lecturer in 1988. After clinical training in paediatrics and human genetics and research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge (England), he took up professorships for Medical Molecular Biology at the Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg and Experimental Therapy at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. From 1998 to 2024, Thomas Boehm was the director at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg and an Honorary Professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Freiburg. Thomas Boehm is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the German Academy of Sciences, the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also the Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation, appointed in 2018. He is the recipient of several awards, including Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize for Young Researchers, the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz Prize (1997) of the German Science Foundation, the Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine (2014), the German Immunology Award (2020) and the Heinrich Wieland Prize (2021).