Sarah Mundt

Groupleader Neuroimmunology,
Department of Neurology,
University Hospital Zurich
Zürich | Switzerland

Sarah Mundt is Group Leader for Neuroimmunology at the Department of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland. Her research program integrates cutting-edge single-cell profiling, spatial and functional proteomics, and conditional gene targeting to dissect CNS–immune interactions in neuropathologies.

Dr. Mundt received her PhD in 2016 from the University of Konstanz, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Marcus Groettrup, where she uncovered an immunoregulatory role of the immunoproteasome in CNS neuroinflammation ( EMBO Molecular Medicine, 2014). She then joined the University of Zurich as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Burkhard Becher, identifying dendritic cells as critical myelin antigen-presenting cells that locally reactivate encephalitogenic T cells in the CNS ( Science Immunology, 2019; Trends in Neurosciences, 2019).

In 2020, Dr. Mundt was awarded the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Ambizione fellowship, enabling her to establish an independent research group at the Institute of Experimental Immunology in Zurich. Supported by local funding agencies including the Swiss MS Society, her team has since contributed several advances: revealing a tissue-protective role of IL-12 in the neuroectoderm ( Nature Neuroscience, 2023), demonstrating that ROS-producing monocyte-derived cells—but not microglia—drive oxidative damage in neuroinflammation (B ioRxiv, 2024), and most recently uncovering a pathogenic role of maladaptive lipid-associated macrophages in progressive neuroinflammation (BioRxiv, 2025).  Her work has contributed to reframing how mononuclear phagocytes are viewed in neuroinflammation, proposing a new conceptual perspective  (Neuron,2022).