Bernd Kaspers graduated in Veterinary Medicine in 1986 from the University of Munich and
received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in 1989. In 1991 and 1992, he worked as
a postdoctoral fellow at the United States Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, MD, USA
where he did research on the immune response to coccidosis before returning to Munich.
Since 1997 he is a Professor for Animal Physiology at the University of Munich, Faculty of
Veterinary Medicine. He has more than 30 years of research experience in animal physiology
and immunology, documented by more than 115 peer-reviewed publications. He is senior
editor of the 3rd edition of “Avian Immunology” published in fall 2022. He is actively involved
in the Avian Immunology Research Group (AIRG) and hosted the 2004 and 2016 AIRG
symposia in Munich. His work involves research on both the innate and adaptive arms of the
avian immune system with a particular focus on host-pathogen interaction, immune system
maturation and mucosal immunity. Through this he has developed a broad range of tools for
avian immunology research such as CD-markers, recombinant cytokines, bio-assays and
technologies for functional in vivo studies which have been made available to the
international avian research community. Prof Kaspers received funding from the European
Union, the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Ministry for Education and
Research and a number of vaccine and nutrition companies. He also coordinated a DFG
funded Graduate School at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Munich.
He has supervised more than 25 thesis in veterinary medicine and animal
physiology/immunology and served as a PhD examiner in the EU on several occasions.

Prof. Kaspers retired from the University of Munich in October 2024 and is currently active as
an independent consultant for Avian Immunology.