Dietmar Zehn is a full professor and chair of Physiology and Immunology at the Technical University of Munich and the Executive Director of the new TUM Center for Infection Prevention. He obtained an MD/PhD degree from the Charité – Medical School of the Humboldt University in Berlin, completed a postdoctoral fellowship with M.J. Bevan at the University of Washington, and held an assistant professorship at the University of Lausanne. His research focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms guiding T cell differentiation in acute and chronic infections and tumors. Specifically, he aims to uncover the processes that lead to the development and maintenance of exhausted T cells and to understand their biological function. He has been awarded two grants from the European Research Council (ERC) and received the ACTERIA/EFIS Early Career Research Prize. Recently, he successfully secured competitive, national funding for a new research building, the TUM Center for Infection Prevention.