Johannes Bluemel PhD Paul-Ehrlich-Institut

Dr. Johannes Blümel is leading the virus safety section at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Langen. He is dealing with the assessment of virus safety and TSE safety of blood products, recombinant DNA products such as monoclonal antibodies, and advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) for clinical trials and marketing authorization. He participated as an expert in the EMA-Biologics Working Party (BWP) and EDQM TSE-certification procedure and contributed to the drafting of numerous Guidelines and Monographs on viral safety. Further, he is working on several research projects on virus inactivation and detection of Viruses by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). Since 2023 he has been chairing the group on blood-associated pathogens for the national advisory board “Arbeitskeis Blut” in Germany as well as the Ph. Eur. Working Party on High Throughput Sequencing (HTS), in charge of elaborating a general chapter on HTS for the detection of viral extraneous agents. Before joining the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut in 1998, Dr. Blümel worked at the University Hospital, University of Bonn (1993-1998). He performed basic research on virus replication and received five years of training in medical virology and virus diagnostics (Fachvirologe). Dr. Blümel completed his Diploma Study in Biology (molecular genetics, microbiology, biophysics, and physical chemistry) in 1991 at the University of Freiburg, Germany. He received his Ph.D. degree at the Department of Virology, University of Freiburg, Germany (1993). In 2010 he received a teaching graduation (Habilitation) in Medical Virology from the University of Frankfurt.