Event Series

CIL Friday Seminar

Event Description

Frank Pessler, M.D., Ph.D. Research Group Leader, Biomarkers for Infectious Diseases, TWINCORE Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research -and- Professor, Hannover Medical School Hannover, Germany In his seminar, Dr. Pessler will first share work on itaconate analogs as treatments for viral infections, showing how modulating itaconate levels can curb excessive interferon responses and reduce viral replication. He will then present his group's current focus: developing first-in-class ACOD1 inhibitors for cancer immunotherapy. His laboratory identified citraconic acid as the world's first ACOD1 inhibitor - blocking the tumor microenvironment's itaconate-driven suppression of cytotoxic CD8? T cells. This work underpins Citrapeutics, a planned HZI spin-off developing orally bioavailable ACOD1 inhibitors - that was already honored with the "Emerging Start-up" award at BioVaria 2025.