Kilian L. Kleemann
Academic Positions
- PhD Candidate
Institute of Clinical Pharmacology & Clinical Chemistry (IKCKP), University of Bonn - Research Collaborator
Tongji University, Shanghai
Research Collaborations
- German Center for Neurodegeneration (DZNE)
- Butovsky Lab, Brigham & Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School
- Eggen Lab - UMC Groningen
Welcome to my research portfolio. I am a PhD candidate in bioinformatics at the University of Bonn, where I study how the immune system responds to aging and Alzheimer’s disease. My work focuses on transposable elements (pieces of DNA that can move within the genome) and how they may activate immune pathways involved in neurodegeneration. To investigate these questions, I analyze large-scale biological datasets, including bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing, as well as other genomic profiling methods.
My path into research began during my Bachelor’s degree at the University of Glasgow, including reserach experience at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). I later conducted research in Boston at Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School, where I worked in the field of neuroimmunology and strengthened my computational skills. I simoultanously completed a Master’s degree (remote) at the University of Portsmouth in data analytics before starting my doctoral studies.
A key part of my PhD involves a collaboration with Tongji University in Shanghai. I worked three months in 2024 and 2025 on joint projects on microglia, mitochondrial biology, and immune mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease. This international collaboration has become an important component of my research, connecting computational work with experimental neuroimmunology.
Check out more highlights in my blog page and my projects about my different research experiences across the globe. 🌏
Check out my publications page where you can find my publications with notes regarding my contributions.
news
| Nov 28, 2025 | Our review “Immune dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease” is now published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. I contributed to the conceptual framework, manuscript writing, and the design of several integrative figures. |
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| May 01, 2025 | Our study on the immune checkpoint TIM-3 (HAVCR2) and its role in releasing microglia from homeostatic restraint is now published in Nature. I contributed to the bulk and single-cell RNA-seq analysis for this work. |
| Jul 01, 2024 | Our shared first-author paper is now published in Nature Medicine, identifying IL18R1⁺ neutrophils as potential biomarkers linking APOE4 status to altered immune responses in Alzheimer’s disease. I led the computational analysis, machine-learning work, manuscript writing, and figure design. |
