Director Institute of Lung Health and Immunity (LHI)
Prof. Dr. Ali Önder Yildirim
“Keeping the lungs healthy is important for the overall well-being of us humans. COVID-19 has especially made us realize how vital a healthy lung is for survival. We therefore want to turn diseased lungs into lungs that are healthy again.”
Academic career and research areas
Ali Önder Yildirim wants to understand the immune mechanisms at the interface between environment and chronic lung diseases. His core strength is to decipher the underlying molecular mechanisms of chronic lung disease and the contribution of the immune system to these processes.
He has a doctoral title in Veterinary Medicine (Justus Liebig University, Gießen) and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Internal Medicine in the clinical research group “chronic airway diseases” at Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany. In 2006, he started at Helmholtz Munich as Group Leader “Immunopathology of COPD” at the Comprehensive Pneumology Center (CPC)/Institute of Lung Biology and Disease (ILBD).
Today, Ali Önder Yildirim is director of the LHI, Institute of Lung Health and Immunity, and director of the CPC-M, the Munich site of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), both Helmholtz Munich. There, he is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Environmental Health Center.
Skills
Immunology Chronic Lung Diseases Immunopathology Platform Imaging COPD DPLD ELD
Professional Background
Director, German Center for Lung research (DZL) site Comprehensive Pneumology Center-Munich (CPC-M)
Director and Professor, Institute of Experimental Pneumology, LMU Munich
Director, Institute of Lung Health and Immunity, Comprehensive Pneumology Center, Helmholtz Munich
Acting Director, Institute of Lung Biology and Disease, Comprehensive Pneumology Center, Helmholtz Munich
Visiting Professor, University of Koc, Istanbul, Turkey
PI and member, German Center for Lung Research in Disease Area COPD, DPLD, ELD and Platform Imaging
PI HICE, Helmholtz Virtual Institute of Complex Molecular Systems in Environmental Health: Aerosol and Health
Deputy Director, Institute of Lung Biology and Disease, Helmholtz Munich
Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Clinical Chemistry & Molecular Diagnostics, Univ. Hospital Giessen & Marburg GmbH, Marburg
Group Leader “Immunopathology of COPD”, Comprehensive Pneumology Center (CPC), Helmholtz Munich, Institute of Lung Biology and Disease; Munich, Germany
Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Internal Medicine clinical research group “chronic airway diseases” Philipps-University of Marburg
Helmholtz Munich Interview with Prof. Önder Yildirim
What you eat is what you breathe: The connection of nutrition and COPD
FOCUS online (available in German only)
Not only smoking, but also diet and climate change harm our lungs!
Listen to the ERCM Medical Podcast (available in German only)