Professor Dr Hermann Einsele

Research Priorities: Stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy for cancer, myeloma, CAR T cell therapy, bispecific antibodies
Hermann Einsele is a haemotologist and oncologist. His work focuses on cell-based immunotherapy, which is considered a breakthrough in the treatment of many diseases, especially tumour, autoimmune, infectious, and degenerative diseases. He played an important role in developing clinical standards in the treatment of blood and bone marrow cancer. In particular, his pioneering work with respect to CAR T cell therapy to treat multiple myeloma brought him world renown.
Starting with an analysis of the virus-specific immune response, Hermann Einsele and his team developed various procedures for the enrichment and selection of antigen-specific T cells – lymphocytes of the human immune system. These antigen-specific T cells were successfully used in treating viral infections in recipients of stem cell transplants, including infections with the cytomegalovirus, the Epstein-Barr virus, and adenoviruses. In additional steps he developed processes to enrich and select immune cells that are effective against fungal pathogens.
Having demonstrated the safe use of T cell therapies following stem cell transplants, Hermann Einsele has developed new strategies for T cell therapy for tumour diseases. This involves the use of T-cell-stimulating (bispecific) antibodies, first preclinically and then in clinical studies in cases of lymph node cancer and B-cell acute lymphatic leukaemia, an aggressive type of blood cancer. These studies led to the first approval for bispecific antibodies and thus to T cell therapy for tumour diseases. These bispecific antibodies were then, for the first time in the world and under the guidance of Hermann Einsele, used to treat patients with multiple myeloma, a malignant disease affecting bone marrow, which is where blood cells are made. This pioneering work marked the start of the approval process for several bispecific antibodies in treating multiple myeloma in the USA and Europe. Hermann Einsele has continued to develop new versions of bispecific antibodies with a multitargeting function. They serve as a precision tool to tackle tumour cells that are resistant to conventional immunotherapies.
Furthermore, Hermann Einsele has played a leading role in the development of CAR T cell therapy, an even more effective cellular immunotherapy. This treatment involves genetically modifying patients’ T cells in such a way that they can attack cancer cells in a targeted manner. Hermann Einsele guided the therapeutic use of CAR T cells for patients with multiple myeloma from the pilot study through to approval for general use. He also managed to develop new strategies in the design and production of CAR T cells, as well as, for the first time, to describe the resistance mechanisms of multiple myeloma against therapy using CAR T cells.