Alexander Scheffold studied Chemistry in Freiburg and Cologne from 1986-1992, Diploma thesis at Miltenyi Biotec. In 1997 he received his PhD at the University of Cologne with Andreas Radbruch. From 1997 to 2007 he established his own lab at the DRFZ Berlin focussing on the T cell-mediated regulation of inflammatory disease. From 2007-2011 he was heading a research group at Miltenyi Biotech developing T cell therapies. From 2012-2018 he was assistant professor of cellular immunology at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Since April 2018 he is the director of the Institute of Immunology at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and the Universitätsklinikum Schleswig-Holstein.
His research focus is the T cell-mediated regulation of tolerance and immunity or immune pathology in humans. His group has developed sensitive methods to characterise in detail T cells that react against specific antigens relevant to allergies, inflammatory bowel diseases, infectious diseases or autoimmunity. His work provided insights into the role of antigen-specific T cells and regulatory T cells in human immune-mediated disease, such as autoimmunity, allergy and chronic inflammation. His work forms the basis for the development of antigen-specific diagnostics and therapies for chronic inflammatory diseases.

Seminar topic: Autoantigen-specific CD4 T cell exhaustion in human autoimmune disease