We grieve for our estimated colleague Prof. Dr. Dr. Wolfgang Lüke. He unexpectedly died on the 29^th of May 2009 at the age of 56 after a short and severe disease.

Wolfgang Lüke studied biology at the Philipps-University Marburg between 1975 and 1981. After his studies he took charge of the biochemical laboratory at the Institute for Genetics at the Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen, where he accomlished his dissertation on TNA-dependend DNA -Polymerase-Aktivity in a tumour-system. Following his broad interest in neighbouring disciplines he changed to virology and became research associate of Prof. Dr. Gerhard Hunsmann in the Department of Virology and Immunology at the German Primate Center in Göttingen.1994 Wolfgang Lüke habilitated at the Hannover Medical School on the development of a vaccination against Immunodeficiency-Virus, like for example the Human Immundoeficiency Virus (HIV). In 2001 Wolfgang Lüke became head of the genetic research team at Jenapharm GmbH & Co. KG, a subsidiary enterprise of Schering AG. One year later he assumed scientific direction of the’Virus Like Particle (VLP) Technology Unit’ at Berlex Bioscience in Richmond, USA. 2004 the Hannover Medical School assigned Wolfgang Lüke as associate professor. The same year he became head of research of our scientific team at IOZK that focuses mainly on antigenpresentation with dendritic cells. At IOZK he executed the conception and installation of the GMP-laboratory.

Wolfgang Lükes scientific work was affected by his maxim that modern science had to come down from ist ivory tower. Accordingly, one of his major concerns was practical application of scientific insights, for example the development of pharmaceuticals. In the last years he concentrated on the conception of new forms of treatment in infectiology and oncology, as for example specific antigen presentation in immunotherapy. With our research team he developed among others human in vitro systems for the generation of diagnostic and therapeutic antibodies.

Wolfgang Lüke was author and coauthor of more than hundered scientific publications and held various international patents. His death is a great loss for us personally and scientifically. We will continue our research in his sense.

Cologne, June 2009

Dr. med. Akos-Sigmund Bihari
Diplom-Biologin Gisela Feldmann
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Volker Schirrmacher
Dr. med. Peter N. Seng
Dr. med. Tobias Sprenger
Dr. Wilfried Stücker