PD Dr. med. Özlem Türeci - 1st Chairwoman of Ci3 e.V.

© A. Zinzow

Özlem Türeci dedicated more than two decades of her professional career to the discovery of unique drug targets exhibiting exceptional selectivity to cancer cells, and to the creation of potent immunotherapy drug platforms to enable treatment of patients in an individualized and tailored manner. She filed more than 80 international patent applications, was granted several patents and published more than 110 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Özlem was the co-founder of Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG, a clinical stage biotech company developing unique high-precision antibodies against various solid cancers that was sold to Astellas Pharma Inc. for EUR 422 million in 2016.
Since 2018, Özlem has been Chief Medical Officer of BioNTech SE – one of Europe’s most innovative biopharmaceutical companies pioneering the development of individualized therapies for cancer and other diseases. She is also President of the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT) e.V. and recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany as well as various other prizes and scholarships. 

Prof. Dr. med. Christoph Huber - 2nd Chairman of Ci3 e.V.

© A. Enderlein
Christoph Huber is professor emeritus and former Head of the department of Hematology and Oncology at the Johannes Gutenberg University Medical School in Mainz, Germany. Past and present personal research interests are tumor immunology (molecular characterization of tumor-associated antigens, therapeutic T-cell receptor transfer, tumor immune escape mechanisms) and transplantation biology (mechanisms of graft-versus-host disease, minor histocompatibility antigens, T cell repertoire). Christoph is also a co-founder of BioNTech SE – one of Europe’s most innovative biopharmaceutical companies pioneering the development of individualized therapies for cancer and other diseases. Moreover, Christoph has held many national and international appointments in various research organizations and regulatory agencies and he is a senior advisor to international pharmaceutical companies.