Andreas Wack Biosketch

Born and bred in Frankfurt, I studied in Konstanz and Milan and did my PhD on thymocyte development at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in Mill Hill in the north of London. I then moved to the research institute of Novartis Vaccines in Siena, Italy, where I worked on the modulation of human T and NK cell function by the hepatitis C virus, on human dendritic cells, the mechanism of action of vaccine adjuvants, and on next generation influenza vaccines. In 2009 I returned to academia, starting my own group at the NIMR that became part of the Francis Crick Institute in 2015. My lab is interested in the responses of airway epithelia and innate immune cells to respiratory viral infection and to viral-bacterial co-infection, aiming to identify determinants of immunopathology and protection. Our work has contributed the understanding of interferon action, describing unique and redundant roles of type I and type III interferons in antiviral responses, inflammation-driven pathology and lung epithelial damage and repair. My group also works on the differentiation of lung epithelia and on long-term effects that acute infections have on lung immunity.