
AG Dr. med. Benjamin Ostendorf, PhD
The research group of Benjamin Ostendorf investigates the interplay between the immune system and cancer.
Sie befinden sich hier:
Focus of research
We investigate how cancer and immune cells interact. We combine computational systems biology with experimental tumor immunology approaches to tackle pressing mechanistic questions with human translational potential. Some of the questions we pursue are:
- Why do some cancer patients show dramatic immunotherapy responses while others do not?
- How do germline genetics impact anti-tumor immunity?
- Can modern high dimensional single-cell technologies help unravel the complexity of the tumor immune microenvironment?
We are a young enthusiastic group based at Charité in Berlin, Germany. Take a look around and please get in touch if you are interested in our work!
Clinician Scientist

News and announcements
- 2021 - AG Ostendorf starts at Charité supported by a Max Eder grant from the German Cancer Aid
Selected publications
- Ostendorf BN, Patel MA, Bilanovic J, Hoffmann HH, Carrasco SE, Rice CM, and Tavazoie SF. Common human genetic variants of APOE impact murine COVID- 19 mortality. Nature (2022) doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05344-2 PubMed
- Zhu XG, Chudnovskiy A, Baudrier L, Prizer B, Liu Y, Ostendorf BN, ..., Birsoy K. Functional Genomics In Vivo Reveal Metabolic Dependencies of Pancreatic Cancer Cells. Cell Metab (2021). doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2020.10.017 PubMed
- Tavora B, Mederer T, Wessel KJ, Ruffing S, Sadjadi M, Missmahl M, Ostendorf BN, ..., Tavazoie SF. Tumoural activation of TLR3-SLIT2 axis in endothelium drives metastasis. Nature (2020). doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2774-y PubMed
- Ostendorf BN, ..., Tavazoie SF. Common germline variants of the human APOE gene modulate melanoma progression and survival. Nat Med (2020). doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-0879-3 PubMed
- Ostendorf BN, Tavazoie SF. Autophagy Suppresses Breast Cancer Metastasis. Dev Cell (2020). doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2020.02.005 PubMed
- Ostendorf BN, Flenner E, Flörcken A, Westermann J. Phenotypic characterization of aberrant stem and progenitor cell populations in myelodysplastic syndromes. PLoS One (2018). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0197823 PubMed
- Tavazoie MF, Pollack I, Tanqueco R, Ostendorf BN, ..., Tavazoie SF. LXR/ApoE Activation Restricts Innate Immune Suppression in Cancer. Cell (2018). doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.12.026 PubMed