Team

Current Members

Prof. Dr. Birgit Sawitzki

Group leader

Dr. Birgit Sawitzki is Professor in Translational Immunology at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH). The trained biochemist investigates interactions between immune cells in inflammatory responses, which drive the severe outcome in a multitude of diseases such as COVID-19, Influenza, Type II diabetes but also in organ transplantation rejection. Strong immunosuppressive drugs can intervene in the inflammatory processes, but they do not offer a cure and often have severe side effects. Birgit Sawitzki wants to open up new treatment options by influencing and regulating the immune system in a targeted way. Until now, she has served as a professor and lab head at the Institute of Medical Immunology of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and has done research at the BIH Center for Regenerative Therapies (BCRT).

 

Chem.-Ing. Katrin Vogt

Lab technician

After my training as a medical-technical laboratory assistant and my subsequent studies in laboratory technology at the School of Engineering for Chemistry in Berlin, I began working at the research laboratory at the Charité’s Institute for Medical Immunology. Here, I worked especially in the fields of protein chemistry and molecular biology. Since 2004, I have been working at the Sawitzki lab and in the last few years I especially focussed on different single cell technologies and multiparametric CyTOf analyses.

Dipl.-Biol. Christine Appelt

Lab technician

After completing my school-based training as a biological-technical assistant, I studied biology at Freie Universität Berlin and graduated with a diploma. Before joining the Sawitzki lab in 2006, I worked in a lab for plant cell and tissue culture (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), in the department of hematology and oncology (Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin) and in the “Institute for Cellular and Molecular Immunology” (Universitätsmedizin Göttingen (UMG)).

Dr. Manuela Fiedler

project manager

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Dr. Matthias Barone

Postdoc

I studied Nanosciences at the University of Basel, an interdisciplinary curriculum that focuses on the interfaces between physics, biology, and chemistry. Due to that broad knowledge in biochemistry and physics, I developed great interest in protein crystallography and did my master thesis in the pharmaceutical industry investigating an antimalarial drug target. I pursued working in structure-guided drug design but moved towards cancer research for the doctoral thesis, which I graduated with summa cum laude at the Free University in Berlin. Early on in that project I got in contact with R, which I used for scripted solutions in many aspects of the drug design workflow. During the first years as postdoc, my interest then slowly shifted from crystallography and NMR to cellular data analysis, which I performed primarily with scripts written in R language.

Since April 2021 I am working as bioinformatician in the Sawitzki lab, where I establish the multiplex analysis workflow, such as imaging mass cytometry or PhenoCycler-Fusion. Besides setting up the image processing and analysis pipeline and guiding students through their projects, I am actively adopting the code for our purposes. One of the projects aims to develop an interface that allows experts without knowledge in R to analyze their data via a web-based app. See the resources page   for more information.

Dr. Olufemi Bolaji

Postdoc

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M.Sc. Julia Stein

PhD student

I studied Biology at Freie Universität Berlin. After finishing my Bachelor thesis in plant biochemistry, I decided to dive into the fascinating and complex field of immunology. I joined the Sawitzki lab in 2018 for my master thesis where I studied the role of the mitochondrial protein TCAIM in effector T cell activation and differentiation. As a doctoral candidate, I got the opportunity to further focus on TCAIM and am now trying to elucidate the effect of TCAIM on memory T cell generation in an Influenza A virus model using flow cytometry and single cell RNA seq amongst other techniques. Of course I am bringing my expertise in those techniques also to other projects dealing with immune processes e.g. against COVID19 infection.

M.Sc. Christina Iwert

PhD student

I did my Bachelor and Master in Biology at Freie Universität Berlin and Technical University Dresden, respectively. Since I passed my first internship in immunology at the beginning of my bachelor studies, I developed a deep growing interest in immunology with special focus to the mechanisms of pathological immune responses associated with autoimmune diseases and allergies. Thus, I do my PhD in the Sawitzki lab and investigate the mechanism of opposing function of the mitochondrial protein TCAIM in conventional CD8+ and regulatory CD4+ T cells. By controlling mitochondrial functions and cellular metabolism, TCAIM seems to inhibit the activation and effector differentiation of conventional while promoting the stability and function of regulatory T cells. Understanding and interfering with this opposing mechanism will help to develop new T cell focused immunotherapies for autoimmune diseases or cancers. To study this I extensively perform multi-parameter FACS and CyTOF analysis on a phenotypic and functional level, but also do RNASeq analysis, as well as non-targeted metabolite analysis with special focus on lipid metabolism.

M.Sc. Zeynep Oktay

PhD student

Zeynep grew up in Istanbul, Turkey. She received her MD degree at Istanbul University in 2018. She then moved to the US to study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received her MSc degree in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology. During her training, she focused on the role of unfolded protein response in beta cell identity and stress adaptation in type 1 diabetes. As a Ph.D. student at Sawitzki lab, Zeynep is currently working on understanding the regulation of immune cell metabolism during bone healing as a part of Collaborative Research Centre 1444. In her free time, she enjoys sailing and exploring international cinema.

M.Sc. Tomislav Kostevc

PhD student

I am a PhD student from Slovenia studying the balance between inflammatory and anti-inflammatory immune cells. As a part of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network INsTRuCT, I focus on metabolic and mitochondrial functions of myeloid cells used as tolerogenic cell therapies.

I hold a Bachelor in Chemistry degree from the University of Ljubljana which I finished with a thesis on Zika virus, an emerging pandemic at that time. Afterwards, wanting to dive into the biomedical field, I became a Master in Biomedical Research at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona with a thesis on colorectal cancer at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid. I continued my studies and graduated also with a Master in Biochemistry from the University of Ljubljana with a thesis on novel CAR-T cells at the National Institute of Chemistry.

My interests include immunometabolism, single-cell technologies and mitochondrial control of the immune response. Outside of the lab, I like to dance, run and travel.

M.Sc. Lev Petrov

PhD student

I have been interested in biology ever since I switched to a private catholic boarding school “Die Loburg, Gymnasium Collegium Johanneum” in Muenster, Germany from my old gymnasium in Odesa, Ukraine. After finishing school my path was clear. During my undergraduate studies, I grew fond of human biology and bioinformatics. I graduated among the first with great scores and with a Biology B.Sc. title from Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf, which allowed me to get into a highly competitive graduate program – Molecular Medicine M.Sc. at Charité Berlin.

Here, I deepened my bioinformatic skills, as well as my knowledge of human pathology and immunology. I graduated fourth-best in my class and immediately started my PhD in the group of Univ. Prof. Dr. Birgit Sawitzki at the Institute of Molecular Immunology / Berlin Institute of Health at Charité Berlin. I am currently working with human blood samples to elucidate the mechanisms of immune response to acute respiratory diseases using multi-omics and bioinformatic approaches, as well as functional assays.

M.Sc. Somesh Sai

PhD student

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B.Sc. Juliette Johnson

master student

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During my biology studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, I developed a deep fascination for immunology and its profound impact on human health. I became fascinated by the complex interplay between immune cells, the signalling pathways that determine their behaviour, and the diversity of immune responses. As a member of AG Sawitzki since October 2021, I pursued my Bachelor’s degree, investigating the role of activated T cells in type 2 diabetes onset and progression. Now, as a Master’s student, I continue to explore the frontiers of immunology in a diverse range of projects, with a particular focus on the revolutionary technology of imaging mass cytometry.

Selin Güneytepe

Medical student

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I am a 5th-year medical student. My journey to Berlin began after graduating from Istanbul Lisesi, a Turkish-German high school. While in Istanbul, I served as the editor of Turkey’s first scientific high school journal, ‘Numune-i Terakki,’ and wrote my inaugural peer-reviewed article. My sister’s diabetes diagnosis deeply influenced me, leading me to choose Charité for its research-focused curriculum and unique opportunities like the clinician scientist program.

Since April 2022, I have been working on my MD project, titled ‘Multiparametric Analysis of Intercellular Communication in Type-2 Diabetes.’ During this time, I have received extensive training in imaging mass cytometry and immunostaining of human pancreatic tissue sections. I aim to advance our understanding of T2D disease pathology and contribute to the development of new therapeutic approaches.

Alumni

We try our best to keep the contact details to our former co-workers up to date. 

Dr. Maria Schneider

PostDoc

Maria established IMC antibody panels and sample preparation for different projects. She left the group in July 2021 to proceed her career at the BMBF in Berlin.

M.Sc. Tizia Thoma

Master student

Tizia did her master thesis in the TCAIM project and graduated in June 2021. She left our group in August 2021 to proceed her career as scientific writer at BASF.

M.Sc. Christiane Gäbel

Phd student

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Dr. Kerstin Mühle

Postdoc

Kerstin was involved in multitude of projects among which establishing IMC antibody panels and sample preparation. She left the group in April 2022 to proceed her career in Colone.

Hannah-Philine Dey

Student assistant

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B.Sc. Sophia Brinster

Student Assistant

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M.Sc. Laia Junquera

Master student

Laia did her Master’s internship in the Sawitzki Lab focusing on new immune markers that could be used to develop immunotherapies in the future. For that, she used Imaging Mass Cytometry (IMC), which allowed her to visualize many markers on a tumor tissue slice at the same time with high resolution. Furthermore she adapted the analysis pipeline to fit onto her data and gained bioinformatic skills. Laia finished her internship mid-2022

B.Sc. Roza Sürme Mızrak

Master Student

Roza was involved in the Molecular Medicine Master’s Program Charité LabA project where she worked on the implementation of novel code for the IMC data processing routine. She finished the project mid-2022.

B.Sc Laura Kluge

Master student

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M. Sc. Karla Riesterer

Master student

Karla investigated T cell exhaustion and the interplay between T helper cells and terminally exhausted CD8+ T cells, and found a direct protein-protein interaction between both cells. She graduated end of May 2022.