Doctoral funding Research Training Group in the Field of Immunology Continues Successful Work
1 June 2026
DFG is providing approximately 5.8 million euros in funding for RTG 2727 at the Medical Faculty Mannheim during the second funding period
Investigating the control mechanisms of immune cell reactivity and how they can be used to improve immune therapy strategies is the topic of a Research Training Group at Heidelberg University that will now continue its successful work in a second funding period. RTG 2727 “Innate Immune Checkpoints in Cancer and Tissue Damage” (InCheck), located at the Medical Faculty Mannheim, has succeeded with its extension application in the latest approval round of the German Research Foundation (DFG). The DFG is making available approximately 5.8 million euros in funding for this doctoral training program for a period of four and a half years. Its spokesperson is the Mannheim-based immunobiochemist Prof. Dr Adelheid Cerwenka.
RTG 2727’s research studies focus on the innate immune system, which constitutes the first line of defense in the battle against infections and cancer. Control mechanisms called checkpoints regulate immune cell reactivity. Yet, little is known so far about how exactly they influence immune responses. During the second funding period the studies will continue to decode the checkpoints at different molecular levels and aim to investigate the identified immune checkpoints in the context of multicellular interactions in healthy, damaged and malignant tissue. These insights are intended to help in exploiting control mechanisms of immune cell reactivity therapeutically by blocking or activating checkpoints in cancer and inflammatory tissue damage.
In order to foster the interaction between basic research and translational research, the RTG is supporting tandem cooperation between doctoral students in the medical field and those doing research at the Faculty of Biosciences. Besides scientists at the Medical Faculties Mannheim and Heidelberg at Heidelberg University and the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, partners from the University of Vienna (Austria) and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm (Sweden) are also involved in the RTG “Innate Immune Checkpoints in Cancer and Tissue Damage”.
Its spokesperson Adelheid Cerwenka is Managing Director of the Mannheim Institute for Innate Immunoscience (MI3) and Professor for Immunobiochemistry at the Medical Faculty Mannheim. Prof. Dr Martina Muckenthaler, head of the Molecular Medicine research division at the Medical Faculty Heidelberg, serves as deputy spokesperson.