Toni Cathomen is Professor of Cell & Gene Therapy and Director of the Institute for Transfusion Medicine and Gene Therapy at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg, Germany. The institute provides the Medical Center with blood products and all transfusion and transplantation related diagnostic laboratory services. The goals of the institute’s research efforts are (i) to improve genome editing tools based on TALEN and CRISPR-Cas for therapeutic applications in human cells, (ii) to develop preclinical in vitro and in vivo disease models to validate the developed strategies, and (iii) to translate immune cell and stem cell therapies to the clinic to treat certain types of cancers, HIV infection and primary immunodeficiencies.