The RESPImmun faculty impresses with the following strengths: i) increased thematic coherence in a well-defined, highly relevant area of biomedical research to foster scientific excellence; ii) advanced clinical relevance with 7 faculty members having an MD background; iii) near optimal gender balance with 6 female and 7 male PIs; and iv) sustainable development of the program by including 13 junior faculty members as Co-PIs, who, despite being at an early stage in their career, have already proven their excellent potential in student supervision and research. Co-PIs constitute both MDs and PhDs and have been chosen to complement the lead PIs with their expertise.
Another key asset is the already established collaborative network, as illustrated by multiple joint publications. Moreover, the consortium has in total raised EUR > 15 Mio in research funding and published > 400 full papers in the past 5 years, including highly outstanding journals (NEJM, Cell, Science, Nature Immunol, Nature Comm, Circulation, AJRCCM etc).
