The RCI becomes a Leibniz Institute in Regensburg
The Regensburg Center for Interventional Immunology (RCI) was founded in 2010 as a central institution of the University of Regensburg to bundle all university research areas working on the development of new immunotherapies. Until the completion of the new research building (the D5) on the campus of the University Hospital in 2019, the BioPark Regensburg, a company of the city of Regensburg, supported the establishment of the RCI by providing them with office and lab space. On January 1, 2022, the RCI was included in the federal-state funding of the Leibniz Association (WGL).
The Berlin-based Leibniz Association was founded in 1990 and is an association of German non-university research institutes of different disciplines that are financed by joint funding from the federal government and the host states. The decision to admit the RCI was made by the Joint Science Conference of the federal and state governments (GWK) on July 2 2020. The institute's budget, which amounts to around nine million euros annually, will be jointly financed by the federal and state governments from January 1. The "scientific accolade" achieved by the RCI also strengthens Regensburg as a location for science and medicine.
The LIT (Leibniz-Institute for Immunotherapy) focuses on translational immunology in the fields of cancer immunotherapy, chronic inflammation and autoimmunity. Its goal is to develop effective cellular immunotherapies in these areas. To this purpose, further leading experts from the most renowned research institutions worldwide are to be engaged at the LIT. Immunologists, biochemists, computer scientists, physicists and physicians are developing methods for genetically modifying human immune cells. This can take cancer treatment into new realms. For example, if a cancer patient with an advanced tumor no longer responds to conventional therapies, genetically "tuned" immune cells of the body will be induced to release "an intelligent cocktail of active substances," as LIT director Prof. Beckhove explained. Initial evidence of the approach's "impressive efficacy" already exists, he said. "The immune system of the diseased person is induced to destroy the tumor itself."
