Winfried F. Pickl

EFIS Treasurer Winfried Pickl is Professor for Translational Immunology, MD, board certified immunologist, and head of the Division of Cellular Immunology and Immunohematology at the Institute of Immunology, Medical University of Vienna, Austria. He received postdoctoral training in immunology in the laboratories of Prof. Walter Knapp, University of Vienna and in molecular biology and genetics at Harvard Medical School, Boston. He has critically contributed to the molecular and functional characterization of T cell activation antigens and monocyte-derived dendritic cells. More recently, he has centered his main scientific interests towards the better definition of the immunological synapse formed between professional antigen-presenting cells and T lymphocytes. Along those lines he and his group have created novel forms of antigen-presenting platforms based on virus-like nanoparticles (immunosomes) as well as novel human-relevant model systems for allergy research based on double (human TCR and HLA) transgenic mice. He is speaker of the newly established doctoral program Molecular, Cellular and Clinical Allergology, MCCA, which is currently funded by the Danube Allergy Research Cluster, DARC, which is funded by the country of Lower Austria and the Medical University of Vienna.