Dr. Thomas Boehm
Curriculum Vitae
Thomas Boehm was born in 1956 in Gelnhausen and studied human medicine at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, with study stays at Columbia University in New York, USA, and at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, UK. In 1982, Thomas Boehm earned his doctorate in Frankfurt, where he also obtained his habilitation in 1988. After a five-year tenure at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, he took a professorship in Molecular Medicine at Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (1991) followed by a professorship in Experimental Therapy at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg (1995). From 1998 to 2024, he was Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics. Since 2024, Thomas Boehm has been Emeritus Director at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology & Epigenetics in Freiburg and a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen.
Research Interests
Thomas Boehm is an immunologist who studies the genetic foundations of the immune system and its development throughout evolution. Through the analysis of various model organisms such as mice, sharks, lampreys, and deep-sea anglerfish, he discovered the fundamental functioning and structure of both the innate and adaptive immune systems. Furthermore, he has identified the molecular foundations of various immunodeficiency diseases and the first cancer genes in T-cell leukemias.
Selected Awards
Thomas Boehm has been honored with numerous awards, including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (1997), the Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine (2014), the Heinrich Wieland Prize (2021), and the Mendel Medal from the Leopoldina (2024).