Forschung

The missions of our university hospital are patient care, teaching and research. These areas are closely interrelated and mutually reinforcing. Our research makes important contributions that have beneficial effects on patient care and medical education.

Our Department is committed to the highest level of research in dermatology. Our achievements in this field – as judged by the cumulative impact factors for the years between 2016 and 2020 (2016:475, 2017:544, 2018:431, 2019:579 and 2020:504) – put us in a competitive international position. Between 2017 and 2020, the number of publications published by members of the Department also increased from 98 (2017) to 142 (2020).

Our research activities focus primarily on basic, patient-oriented translational and clinical research.

It includes projects in:

• immunodermatology, in particular innate immunity and T-cell biology in inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis, neutrophilic dermatoses, cutaneous adverse drug eruptions including TEN/SJS and immune-related adverse events (irAEs) due to checkpoint inhibitors;
• allergy research focusing on atopic dermatitis and allergic reactions to drugs, foods and other materials;
• dermato-oncology investigating the pathogenesis, early diagnosis supported by innovative non-invasive imaging techniques and targeted treatment of skin cancer, particularly of melanoma, cutaneous lymphoma and non-melanoma skin cancers; and
• autoimmune bullous skin diseases. 

The aim of our research activities is to 

• significantly advance the pathophysiological knowledge of dermatological diseases
• improve the diagnosis and therapy of dermatological diseases

We try to achieve this through

• competitive fund-raising
• implementation of clinical trials
• training clinician scientists
• promoting intensive networking and collaboration with other institutes and Departments internationally and domestically
• supporting fellowships abroad in excellent research institutions and maximize competitive research funding

Key figures and highlights

Currently more than 100 ongoing clinical trials of new therapeutic approaches in skin disease are performed at our Department. 59 studies are for inflammatory skin diseases (atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, generalized pustulous psoriasis, acne inversa, prurigo nodularis, chronic urticaria, lichen ruber, bullous pemphigoid, pemphigus vulgaris and lamellar ichtyosis) and 45 studies are for skin cancers (melanoma, non-melanoma skin cancers and all tumor entities).