Team

Florian Kurth

PI

Lara Bardtke

PhD-Student

Claudia Conrad

Technical Assistant

After successfully completing my technical school training as a medical-technical laboratory assistant, I earned a diploma in food chemistry at the Humboldt University Berlin. Afterwards, I completed the second state examination as a state-certified food chemist.

Since 2012, I have been employed as a technical assistant in the Medical Department, Division of Infectiology and Pneumonology, at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and since 2018 I have been working in the Sander lab.

Clemens Dierks

Scientific Employee

Christoph Gerlach

Study Assistance

Trained MFA, experience as CRA and study nurse.

David Hillus

Clinician Scientist

David studied medicine at Charité Berlin and completed all United States Medical Licensure Examinations (USMLE). He worked at the medical start-up AMBOSS Inc. in the US team and as a resident in infectious diseases before joining the Sander lab in 2020. Driven by his fascination with the potential of AI tools in advancing medicine, David specialized with a Master’s degree in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. He is especially interested in interpretable machine learning, causal inference, and immunological modeling.

For the vaccination studies, he is involved with data acquisition, processing, analysis, and modeling of clinical as well as immunological variables.

Leu Huang

Clinician Scientist

Leu studied medicine at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and is completing her bachelor’s degree in business administration at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Before joining the Sander Lab, she worked for multiple start-ups and gained experience in building interdisciplinary collaborations for a pharmaceutical company. Currently, she is part of the clinical research physicians team and focuses on the SEMVAc study.

Beyond her professional life, Leu is passionate about afro-latin dances, running and good food.

Karolina Kneller

Master Student

Paolo Kroneberg

Master Student

Vanessa Kuphal

Study Assistance

I was born and raised in Berlin. In January 2017, I successfully completed my training as a medical assistant. Since then I have been working at the Charité Berlin and have already been able to gain experience in various areas. My career so far I have been able to complete in the areas of radiation oncology & radiotherapy, anyway on the pediatric oncology ward with a focus on KMT. Since the field of infectious diseases particularly appeals to me, I will now actively support the Sander team as a study nurse. Outside of work, I find my balance in yoga and am also a trained yoga instructor.

Han Le

Clinician Scientist

Han works as a study physician for our clinical studies on COVID-19 and Monkeypox vaccines. As an MD, she loves acting at the intersection of research and clinical practice, bringing together the best of these two fields. She studied medicine and economics in Heidelberg/Mannheim with stops in Denmark, Switzerland, Luxembourg, China, USA, and Egypt and was supported by several scholarships. Her special interest concerns global health and politics, having had the opportunity to gain experience at the MoH and industry. In that spirit, Han has initiated several humanitarian and social projects – the latest contribution being a transport of medical supplies to Ukraine with the Fachschaft Medizin Charité.

Florentina Leitner

Clinician Scientist

Florentina joined our team as a physician and researcher after obtaining her MD degree from the Medical University of Vienna in 2022. Florentina’s interest in research was ignited early on during her medical studies in Vienna, where she focused on the effects of iron deficiency on thromboembolism as a long-term research fellow at the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology. Furthermore, her curiosity in science took her to Brazil (Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre) and Australia (Australian National University & University of Sydney). During her time in Australia, she specifically acquired knowledge on various cytometry techniques in the field of infectious diseases and autoimmunity, and was particularly captivated by the novel techniques of deep immunoprofiling. As a clinician scientist at Charité, Florentina now continues to focus on clinical translational research, where she specializes on the integration of both, deep clinical and immunological phenotyping in the context of COVID-19. Apart from science & medicine, Florentina is also passionate about music, traveling and all kinds of outdoor activities.

Tilman Lingscheid

Clinician Scientist

Paula Stubbemann

MD-Student

Nicole Stobäus

Project Coordination

Pinkus Tober-Lau

Clinician Scientist

Pinkus is a physician and clinical investigator, graduating from Charité in 2020. Having spent time in Togo, Oman, and Gabon, he is currently working on clinical and proteomic studies related to malaria, NTDs, COVID-19, monkeypox, as well as vaccines against the latter two diseases.

Saskia Schwalgun

Project Coordination

Cäcilie von Wedel

Clinician Scientist