National Immunity Platform COVIM Receives Funding as a New Research Infrastructure - Collaborative project initiated by University Hospital Cologne and Charité
As part of the “NUM Infrastructure Measures” initiative, €10.3 million in funding, plus an additional €4.8 million, will be provided to establish and further develop the platform.
The COVIM infrastructure is designed to enable, for the first time, the standardized and scalable implementation of novel and innovative methods for measuring and characterizing immunity.
Immunological mechanisms and their targeted use are central to many areas of modern medicine. This applies not only to infectious diseases, but also to transplantation medicine, oncology, neurology, and numerous other medical disciplines. A comprehensive understanding of immune responses, together with their reliable and standardized assessment, provides an essential foundation for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of a wide range of diseases.
To date, however, standardized assessment of specific immune responses has been established only for selected humoral and cellular analyses. Validated and scalable methods for measuring complex immune responses are still lacking in many areas. Standardized measurement procedures are therefore essential for evaluating innovative therapeutic approaches, ensuring that results can be compared across different sites and studies, and sustainably strengthening the translational research capabilities of university medicine.
COVIM addresses this need by providing high-quality, standardized immunological measurement methods at up to 25 sites across Germany, thereby creating an important foundation for innovative clinical research.
COVIM was originally initiated in 2020 by Prof. Dr. Florian Klein, University Hospital Cologne and Executive Board Member at the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC), and Prof. Dr. Leif Erik Sander of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin as a collaborative project between the two institutions and has since been coordinated at both sites. During the new funding period, Prof. Dr. Dr. Susanne Herold of University Hospital Giessen and Prof. Dr. Maike Hofmann of University Medical Center Freiburg will join the COVIM network’s leadership team.
During its first two funding phases, COVIM has already made important contributions to research on immunity, resulting in more than 100 scientific publications. Findings from the network have also repeatedly informed national recommendations.
Network University Medicine (NUM)
The Network University Medicine (NUM) was established in April 2020 to coordinate clinical COVID-19 research across Germany’s university medical centers. Since then, researchers from all 37 German university medical sites have collaborated under the umbrella of NUM through shared platforms and interdisciplinary research projects.
NUM research projects are closely linked to clinical practice and aim to generate findings with direct practical relevance, helping to improve patient care and strengthen the response to major public health crises. To support these efforts, the network has established specialized research infrastructures.
These methodological, technical, and organizational platforms are maintained within NUM and can be used for a wide range of clinical research projects. They support, for example, data collection as well as data and biospecimen management for large multicenter clinical studies.
NUM is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space and coordinated by Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
Million-Euro Funding to Advance Lymphoma Therapy - ERC Starting Grant for Prof. Dr. Dr. Philipp Schommers
04/09/2026
Professor Dr. Dr. Philipp Schommers - principle investigator at the CMMC - has been awarded a prestigious Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC Starting Grant supports outstanding early-career researchers for a period of five years with funding of up to €1.5 million.
“This funding will enable us to improve lymphoma therapy by developing new, highly effective and safe antibodies,” says Prof. Dr. Dr. Philipp Schommers, principle investigator at the CMMC.
In the project “Mapping Immune Escape in Lymphoma and Overcoming It with Novel Optimized Multispecific Antibodies” (OPTIMsAB), the researchers aim to significantly improve the treatment of lymphoma. Led by Else Kröner Clinician Scientist and CMMC researcherProfessor Dr. Dr. Philipp Schommers from the Department I of Internal Medicine at University Hospital Cologne, the team will explore innovative immunotherapeutic approaches designed to enhance the effectiveness of antibody-based therapies.
Bispecific antibodies (BiAbs) are engineered proteins capable of binding to two different targets simultaneously. They have already transformed the treatment of lymphoma, but many patients eventually develop resistance. The OPTIMsAB project seeks to uncover the mechanisms underlying this resistance and to develop novel multispecific antibodies (msAbs) that can target several molecules simultaneously while activating additional immune cells.
By combining molecular analyses with innovative experimental approaches, the researchers will map the surface characteristics of lymphoma cells and use these insights to develop multispecific antibodies specifically designed to overcome treatment resistance.
“This funding will enable us to improve lymphoma therapy by developing new, highly effective and safe antibodies,” says Prof. Dr. Dr. Philipp Schommers.
The project is expected not only to provide a foundation for new therapeutic options but also to advance the fundamental understanding of immune resistance in lymphoma.
This message has been modified by the CMMC (K. Heber & D. Grosskopf-Kroiher) and is based on the text by the press and communications team of the University Hospital Cologne (original German version here).