Professor Dr. Dirk Jager is Managing director of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), Heidelberg and the Department of Medical Oncology at the University Center Heidelberg. He is also head of the research group “Applied Tumor Immunity” at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ).
He began his scientific career at Cancer Research Institute, New York at the Department of Pathology, Cornell Medical Center, New York, and the Ludwig Institute, New York Branch (L.J. Old, Y.T. Chen, 1998-2000).
Subsequently, he joined the Department of Hematology/Oncology, Krankenhaus Nordwest, Frankfurt as head of the Research Group `Tumor antigen identification and characterization´(2001-2003). He moved on to the University Hospital Zurich, where he became PI of the Laboratory for Tumor Immunology at the Oncology Department (2003-2005). Since 2005 until today he works at the NCT in Heidelberg.
His research focuses on the characterization and better understanding of tumor-host immune interactions at the tumor site and the development of novel treatment strategies to therapeutically interact in this immunological interplay.