Specialist in herpes viruses succeeds Professor Thomas Schulz.
Successor to Professor Dr. Thomas F. Schulz at the Institute of Virology: Professor Dr. Lars Dölken. Copyright: Karin Kaiser/MHH
The Institute of Virology at Hannover Medical School (MHH) has a new Director: Professor Dr. Lars Dölken took up the post on 2 April. The specialist in herpes viruses succeeds Professor Dr. Thomas F. Schulz, who has headed the Institute since 2000.
Professor Dölken is a specialist in microbiology, virology and infection biology. He was previously Director of the Institute of Virology and Immunobiology at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. "In Lars Dölken, the MHH has been able to recruit an outstanding internationally recognised representative of his field. The physician and virologist will further strengthen the MHH focus on infectiology and thus the Cluster of Excellence RESIST," says MHH President Professor Dr. Michael Manns. He is very grateful to Professor Schulz for his decades of successful work. Professor Schulz has, among other things, acquired and led a Collaborative Research Centre and the Cluster of Excellence RESIST.
Close contact with the MHH for years
Professor Dölken is looking forward to his new role in Hanover. "The MHH offers excellent conditions for combining basic research into virus-host interactions with clinical-translational research into viral infections, particularly in transplant patients," says the 47-year-old. "I am very much looking forward to working with the outstanding team at my institute and the recognised experts at the MHH." Through the DFG research group FOR2830 "Advanced concepts in the cellular immune control of cytomegaloviruses", which he heads, he has been in close contact with numerous research groups at the MHH for many years.
Lars Dölken was born and grew up in Freiburg in Breisgau and studied medicine at the University of Greifswald and at the University of Otago in Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand. After completing his doctorate, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in virology at the Max von Pettenkofer Institute at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich from 2005. He also completed his specialist training and his habilitation there. In 2011, he moved to the University of Cambridge, UK, as a lecturer in transfusion and transplantation virology. Since 2015, he has held the Chair of Virology at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg.
Text: Bettina Bandel