Stephan Urban
Stephan Urban is a Professor for Translational Virology and head of the Hepatitis Research Group at Heidelberg University Hospital, where he works on turning basic discoveries about how hepatitis viruses infect liver cells into real treatments for patients
Stephan's career is a rare example of basic research reaching patients. After studying Biochemistry in Tübingen and completing his PhD at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, he built his research on hepatitis B and D viruses at Heidelberg's ZMBH and has held a DZIF professorship since 2014. Over roughly three decades, his group developed bulevirtide (Hepcludex), the first approved drug against chronic hepatitis D. It was first authorized in Europe in 2020, later acquired by Gilead Sciences and recently approved by the FDA. For this work he has received the Baruch S. Blumberg Prize, an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel, and the McGuigan Drug Discovery Award.
Stephan will give us a rare inside look at how a discovery made at the lab bench can travel all the way to clinical trials, regulatory approval, a pharmaceutical acquisition and what that path actually looks like from the inside. Check out his lab here.
