Ulrike Protzer studied medicine and finished trainings as a specialist for Internal Medicine with a focus on hepatology and infectious diseases and as a specialist for in Medical Microbiology, Virology and Infection Epidemiology working with Karl-Hermann zum Büschenfelde, Guido Gerken, Georg Kräusslich and Martin Krönke. She did her scientific postdoctoral training with Heinz Schaller at the Center for Molecular Biology Heidelberg (ZMBH, Molecular Biology of Hepatitis B Viruses), where she also passed her “habilitation”. At the University of Cologne she was appointed as a junior group leader before she was became chair of virology at the Technische Universität München heading the Institute of Virology there and at the Helmholtz Zentrum München.