December 10th, 2025

Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz besucht TRON – Ein besonderer Tag für Forschung und Innovation!

Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz, Ministerpräsident Alexander Schweitzer und Wissenschaftsminister Clemens Hoch informierten sich gemeinsam mit einer Delegation über die Spitzenforschung am TRON.

December 1st, 2025

CRC1292 enters its third funding period

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has extended Collaborative Research Center 1292 “Targeting Immunity to Treat Cancer” for another four years, providing 13.9 million Euro to advance innovative immunotherapy approaches against cancer and chronic infections.

November 18th, 2025

Blood Donation Saves Lives – and Advances Research

TRON’s managing directors donated blood at the Institute of Transfusion Medicine in Mainz, supporting both patient care and cancer research.

November 10th, 2025

Katalin Karikó at the TRON Scientific Retreat 2025

Ten years after her last talk at TRON, we were honored to welcome Nobel laureate and mRNA pioneer Katalin Karikó back to Mainz.

October 12th, 2025

TRON Joins LAB 1 – A New Chapter at Mainz’s Biotech Campus

TRON has moved part of its scientific team into LAB 1 at InnovationLabz Mainz, creating space for collaboration and growth.

September 26th, 2025

Yscript Delivers Proof-of-Concept for Yeast-based mRNA Production

The EU-funded Yscript project has successfully demonstrated that yeast cells can produce therapeutic mRNA — a major step toward scalable, affordable mRNA-based medicines. As the project concludes, a closing video highlights the journey from concept to proof-of-concept.

We are TRON

TRON is an independent non-profit translational research organization. We pursue new diagnostics and drugs for the treatment of diseases with high medical need. We apply our transdisciplinary competencies in genomics and immunology to develop novel platforms for the identification and validation of ‘omics’-based biomarkers, to modulate immune system components for use in personalized therapies. Collaborating with academia and industry, TRON executes research at the leading edge to support innovative drug design for human health.

Our new research building

Our new research building is currently under construction on the grounds of Mainz University Medical Center according to a concept by Nickl und Partner architects. This envisions a modern, light-flooded building with laboratory and office areas as well as communication zones with up to 10,800 m² of usable space, which will be integrated into the adjacent green areas and the listed Fichte settlement. As a result of intensive coordination with the city of Mainz and all parties involved, construction preparations have been initiated in record time.

Our Research Focus

TRON conducts collaborative research on disease genomics and therapeutic modulation of the immune system. Specializing in cancer immunology and genomics, our research teams develop tailored bioinformatic and novel biostatistical approaches to identify and characterize disease-relevant molecular targets. We design and improve cutting edge technologies for biomarker discovery and biopharmaceutical development, including platforms for immune-based therapies such as RNA vaccines and cellular therapies.

Ugur Sahin

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ugur Sahin is a doctor of medicine, immunologist and cancer researcher. His key focus is translating groundbreaking novel scientific ideas into medical innovations that help individual patients, an interest that was originally prompted by his experiences as a physician. His key contributions in cancer immunotherapy cover various fields, including the discovery of tumor-associated antigens, the development of Zolbetuximab and similar novel “ideal” monoclonal antibodies (IMABs) for the treatment of solid cancers, and diverse classes of RNA-based immunotherapies. Together with his team, he pioneered the concept of individualized cancer immunotherapies and in particular the development of mRNA-based vaccines that are tailored to each patient´s cancer mutation profile. Ugur is a Professor at the University Medical Center of Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) Mainz, and co-founder and shareholder of TRON. He was TRON´s scientific managing director from 2010 until September 2019. With like-minded partners, he co-founded successful spin-offs from JGU, such as Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG and BioNTech SE, the latter of which he is CEO, and co-initiated Cluster for Individualized Immune Intervention (Ci3). Ugur is also Chair of the Scientific Directorate of the Helmholtz Institute HI-TRON Mainz. Ugur closely supports TRON as a strategic and scientific advisor as well as supervisor and mentor for TRON’s PhD students. He is the recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany as well as various other prizes, and scholarships and honorary doctorates.

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Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz besucht TRON – Ein besonderer Tag für Forschung und Innovation!

CRC1292 enters its third funding period

Blood Donation Saves Lives – and Advances Research

Katalin Karikó at the TRON Scientific Retreat 2025

TRON Joins LAB 1 – A New Chapter at Mainz’s Biotech Campus

Yscript Delivers Proof-of-Concept for Yeast-based mRNA Production

We are TRON

Our new research building

Our Research Focus

Supported by

Christoph Huber

Martin Löwer

Matthias Gaida

Michael Ludorf

Mustafa Diken

Özlem Türeci

Sebastian Kreiter

Tina Büchling

Ugur Sahin