Priv.-Doz. Dr. rer. nat. Petra Hoffmann
For more than 20 years, Associate Professor Petra Hoffmann has dedicated her work to developing enhanced therapies for acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). This condition arises from a complication that can occur after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and is potentially life-threatening.
An immunologist by background, Associate Professor Petra Hoffmann has focussed on the use of donor-derived regulatory T cells (Tregs) for the cellular therapy of GVHD. Together with Professor Matthias Edinger and Doctor Jörg Ermann (now at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston, USA), she published some of the first reports on the protective effect of Tregs in experimental models of GVHD (Hoffmann et al., JExpMed 2002; Edinger et al., Nat Med 2003; Ermann et al., Blood 2005). After her move to Regensburg in 2003, she developed efficient in vitro expansion protocols for human Tregs (Hoffmann et al., Blood 2004), as well as a robust identification and isolation strategy for this rare cell population (Hoffmann et al., Blood 2006). These were both in co-operation with Professor Edinger.