Dr. Maik Luu, PhD, is a tenure track assistant professor at the University Hospital Würzburg, specialized in investigating the interaction between microbiome-derived metabolites and cellular immunotherapy. He earned his PhD degree in T cell immunology in 2019 from the Philipps-University Marburg, focusing on the impact of the microbiome on autoimmunity and inflammation. During his postdoc, Dr. Luu has investigated mechanisms of mucosal homeostasis and strategies to improve T cell-mediated cancer immunotherapy.

His lab primarily focuses on synergizing microbial postbiotics and CAR T cell engineering to improve cellular therapy for malignant and non-malignant diseases. The team uses syngeneic mouse models, metabolic tracing and pharmacologic interventions for the identification of immunomodulatory microbial metabolites and dissecting their modes of action on epigenetic and metabolic level, thereby allowing the translation of basic research into next-generation cell products.

Dr. Luu has published extensively in leading journals and has presented his work at national and international conferences. He has received several honors such as the EBMT/EHA Emerging Investigator Award and the Bright Spark Research Award by the American Association of Immunology. Dr. Luu is an appointed member of the Young Academy at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and scientific project manager of the EU IMI consortium T2EVOLVE.

Driven by the passion for immunology, Dr. Luu’s goal is to elucidate the mechanisms by which the microbiome influences cellular therapy outcome and to make it accessible for clinical application.