Florian I. Schmidt studied Biochemistry at TU Munich and obtained his PhD at ETH Zurich, studying host cell entry of poxviruses. He received post-doctoral training at the Whitehead Institute/MIT, where he employed the nanobody technology to obtain mechanistic insights into inflammasome assembly and infection biology. In 2017, he returned to Germany to start his own research group in Bonn, funded by the Emmy Noether program of the DFG. Florian is a member of the Cluster of Excellence ‚Immunosensation2‘ at the University of Bonn, and has co-founded DiosCURE Therapeutics to bring neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 nanobodies into the clinic.
The F.I. Schmidt laboratory is interested in molecular regulation of inflammation and antiviral defense mechanisms
The lab generates customized nanobodies as well as other engineered protein tools to visualize and perturb inflammasome assembly, pyroptotic cell death, as well as antiviral immune responses. We strive to develop the necessary tools to track inflammatory responses at the levels of molecules, complexes, and cells using non-invasive methods that avoid cell lysis. This will help establish experimental settings that tackle human immunobiology in its physiological environment.
