Birgit Sawitzki

Birgit Sawitzki serves as Professor for Translational Immunology and Head of the Center of Immunomics at the Berlin Institute of Health @ Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin. She holds leadership positions within major scientific organizations and directs significant research initiatives focused on immune system mechanisms and inflammatory diseases.

Her research interests center on understanding the molecular mechanisms of immune cell activation and tolerance induction, with particular focus on why immune responses sometimes trigger destructive inflammatory reactions in autoimmune diseases and conditions like COVID-19. She employs advanced multi-parametric technologies including cytometry, imaging, and single-cell RNA sequencing to uncover pathological changes in immune cell composition and function.

Professor Sawitzki is actively engaged with the German Society of Immunology (DGfI), serving on the 'Consultant Immunologist' exam board and as part of the organizing committee for the annual 'Translational Immunology' and 'Autum' schools. She was elected as a council member for the European Society of Transplantation (ESOT).

Currently, she co-leads the Excellence Cluster initiative INTERACT with Wolfgang Kübler, which investigates dysregulated inter-organ communications as a cause of multimorbidity. This initiative incorporates AI and machine learning modeling to accelerate patient risk stratification and identify novel therapeutic targets.