Rate My Professor Christian Ottensmeier

Ottensmeier's research specializes in understanding and improving immune responses in cancer patients to advance immunotherapies against solid cancers, with a focus on head and neck and lung cancers following prior work in melanoma. He directs laboratory investigations into the interplay of innate and adaptive immune cells, underpinned by tissue collections from approximately 4000 patients since 2015. He oversees a broad portfolio of clinical trials in solid cancers, co-developing national and international studies, and leads funded projects including personalised doggybone DNA vaccines for non-small cell lung cancer (Medical Research Council, 2023-2027) and immunological stratification of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (Clatterbridge Cancer Charity, 2023-2024). Notable publications encompass 'Constitutive inflammation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition dictate sensitivity to nivolumab in CONFIRM: a placebo-controlled, randomised phase III trial' (Nature Communications, 2025), 'Geospatial immune variability illuminates differential evolution of lung adenocarcinoma' (Nature Medicine, 2020), and 'DNA fusion-gene vaccination in patients with prostate cancer induces high-frequency CD8+ T-cell responses and increases PSA doubling time' (Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy, 2012). He holds roles as early phase subspecialty lead for CRN North West Coast Region, member of EATI and Cancer Vaccines Expert Working Group, and serves on editorial boards for Journal of Immunotherapy of Cancer and Immunotherapy Advances. Ottensmeier contributes to teaching in the 'Frontiers in Cancer Research and Treatment' module (LIFE724) and supervises theses on tumour-reactive T-cells in head and neck cancer.