Professor Henning Walczak is Professor of Cancer Biology at University College London (UCL), Chair of the Centre for Cell Death, Cancer and Inflammation (CCCI) at UCL’s Cancer Institute and Co-Director of the Cancer Research UK UCL Cancer Centre.
Following his PhD in 1995 at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, he worked as a postdoctoral scientist at Immunex Corporation in Seattle (WA, USA). In 1998 he returned to the DKFZ where he became group leader in 2000 following receipt of a BioFuture Prize awarded by the German Ministry for Science and Education. In 2007 he was appointed as Chair of Tumour Immunology at Imperial College London, and joined UCL in 2013 to assume his current position.
In 2012 Professor Walczak was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant and received a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award. In 2013 he became Co-Director of the Cancer Research UK UCL Cancer Centre.
Professor Walczak’s research is focussed on the biology of cell death and inflammation in cancer and auto-immunity. He is particularly interested in unravelling the mechanisms how different death receptor-ligand systems, including the TNF and TRAIL systems, are regulated. His research aims at developing innovative cancer therapies on the basis of directly and specifically inducing cancer cell death and new therapeutic options for patients suffering from auto-immunity based on the concept that distinct forms of cell death differentially affect inflammation and immunity.