Brigitta Stockinger obtained her PhD in Biology at the University of Mainz and then did postdoctoral studies in London and Cambridge and Heidelberg. In 1985 she became a member of the Basel Institute for Immunology where she stayed until 1991.
In 1991 Gitta became a group leader in the Division of Molecular Immunology of the Medical Research Council National Institute for Medical Research (now part of the Francis Crick Institute). Her research initially focused on immune tolerance using T cell receptor transgenic mouse models as well as immunological memory of CD4 T cells, their generation and survival and more recently on deciphering the physiological functions of an environmental sensor, the transcription factor aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) in the immune system.
Gitta obtained an ERC Advanced Investigator grant in 2009 to study physiological functions of AhR and in 2013 and 2018 was awarded Wellcome Senior Investigator Grant that will continue and expand the investigation of AhR in innate and adaptive immune cells as well as in epithelial cells of the intestinal barrier.
She became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2005, an EMBO fellow in 2008 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2013.