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Breites Porträt von LHI Direktor Ali Önder Yildirim
Matthias Tunger Photodesign

Prof. Dr. Ali Önder Yildirim

Director Institute of Lung Health and Immunity (LHI)

“Keeping the lung healthy is important for the overall well-being of us humans. Especially COVID-19 has made us realize how vital a healthy lung is for survival. We therefore want to turn diseased lungs into lungs that are healthy again.”

“Keeping the lung healthy is important for the overall well-being of us humans. Especially COVID-19 has 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 doctor 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 also is member of the Ececutive Committee of the Environmental Health Center.

Skills

 Immunology Chronic Lung Diseases Immunopathology Platform Imaging COPD DPLD ELD

Professional Background

Since 2024

Director CPC-M (Munich site of German Center for Lung Research, DZL)

Since 2020

Director of Institute for Lung Health and Immunity (LHI)/Comprehensive Pneumology Center (CPC), Helmholtz Munich, Germany

Since 2019

Editorial Board member of Frontier Immunology

Since 2009

Group Leader “Immunopathology of COPD”, Comprehensive Pneumology Center (CPC), Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, Institute of Lung Biology and Disease; Munich, Germany