Andre Franke

In 2020, during the first wave of the Corona virus epidemic, Franke investigated the genetic susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 and also tried to identify genetic factors that contribute to the variation and development of COVID-19 such as disease severity. This first genome-wide association study for COVID-19 identified the ABO blood-group system as a factor for susceptibility for SARS-CoV-2 infection whereas variants in the gene cluster on chromosome 3p21.31 were determined as important factors for disease severity.

While mentored by Richard S. Blumberg, Franke also served as a guest scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Boston in 2011. He was promoted to a full W3 professorship and has been holding this appointment since 2016.

Since 2011, Franke has been the Director of the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology.

Following his doctor rerum naturalium degree and a short postdoc, Franke started his academic career as an assistant professor for Epithelial Barrier Diseases funded by the DFG Cluster of Excellence 306 between 2008 and 2011.

Franke's work in genome wide association studies mainly focused on the identification of susceptibility genes in inflammatory diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. During his PhD in 2006, he performed the first genome-wide association scan of nonsynonymous SNPs in a case-control panel with Crohn's disease patients and control individuals. The identification of a Crohn's-associated coding SNP in the ATG16L1 led to the description that autophagy is an important pathway that is impaired in patients with Crohn's disease. A 2010 research study which undertook the genome-wide association meta-analysis and replication study for Crohn's disease identified 71 novel loci that are associated with the disease, further completing the genetic architecture of inflammatory bowel diseases. Later on, Franke joined the International IBD Genetics Consortium (IIBDGC) where he is on the Management Committee.

Franke enrolled at the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel and graduated with a Diploma in Biology in 2003. From 2004 until 2006, he undertook research in complex disease genetics for a Doctor rerum naturalium at the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology under the supervision of Stefan Schreiber and Thomas C.G. Bosch. His dissertation was titled "A systematic genome-wide association analysis for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases."

Andre Franke, born on 16 October 1978, is a geneticist, academic, and university professor. He is a Full W3 Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, and a managing director at the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology.