Wibke Bayer

Dr. Wibke Bayer is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Virology, University of Duisburg-Essen. Her research focuses on developing anti-retroviral vaccination strategies using adenovirus, cytomegalovirus, and DNA-based vectors, with a particular emphasis on overcoming pre-existing vector immunity and optimizing genetic adjuvants. She leads a research group studying both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines in the Friend retrovirus model, which allows direct analysis of immune responses and viral protection.

Her work spans two major areas:

• Engineering adenovirus vectors to improve their efficacy by eliminating interactions with platelet factor 4 (PF4) to avoid thrombosis risks
• Exploring therapeutic vaccination for chronic retroviral infections by breaking immunosuppression through co-administration of cytokine-encoding vectors

Analysis of her publications reveals trends in:

• Vaccine vector optimization (adenovirus, AAV, CMV)
• Immune response dynamics (IL-1β adjuvants, tissue-resident T cells)
• Pre-existing immunity challenges in clinical trials
• Mucosal vaccination for respiratory pathogens
• Neuroimmunology via AAV seroprevalence in neuromuscular disorders
• Gene therapy applications for retroviral restriction