Dr. Stitz started his career as a PhD student & postdoc in the lab of Prof. Klaus Cichutek at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute working on the development of retro/lentiviral targeting & pseudotype vectors. As an EMBO fellow, he joined Prof. Garry P. Nolan`s research group at Stanford University (genetic screens) followed by a junior group leader position at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Later in Basel, he worked in a biotech startup: antibody discovery. With Crucell and Johnson & Johnson in The Netherlands, he developed viral vaccines. The Stitz Lab a TH Köln was founded in 2016. The group's research aims at improving mammalian cell line development, USP and DSP to enhance the efficiency of production of biologics such as therapeutic antibodies, cytokines, vaccines and viral vectors. The lab develops and optimizes transposon vectors, viral vectors and Virus-Like Particles (VLPs) for gene therapy and vaccination as well as novel antibody and target antigen discovery platforms.
