Professor Frank Brombacher

Scientific Coordinator for Immunology and Infectious Diseases, ICGEB Cape Town

Professor Brombacher moved to South Africa from Germany in 1998 to join UCT, where he established an extramural South African Medical Research Council Unit in 2000. In 2005, he became a UCT “Fellow for Life” and South African Research Chair and Coordinator at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (Cape Town component). He is A-rated by the NRF.

His group’s main research focus is the understanding of host protective immune responses in human diseases. The group investigates important regulatory mechanisms—including pattern recognition receptors and cytokine network and cellular crosstalk during innate immunity—which may lead to subsequent adaptive immunity or failure thereof. Their strategy is centred on a “gain of knowledge by loss of function” approach based on deficient mouse models generated by gene targeting in embryonic stem cells. The group works on experimental mouse models for TB, leishmaniasis, and trypanosomiasis, as well as helminth infections and schistosomiasis, and have additional interests in allergic conditions such as asthma and food-related allergies.

Professor Brombacher studied Biology at the Alberts-Ludwigs University Freiburg, Germany, and completed his PhD in Molecular Immunology at the Max Planck Institute in 1989.

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