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Overview

Helmholtz Young Investigator Group"Innate Immunomodulation"

 

Competencies:

  • Modulation of allergic and non-allergic airway inflammation
  • Immune-regulation of lipid mediator pathways

Mission:

Type 2 immune responses confer protection against worm parasites (helminths), but also drive inflammation and immunopathology in allergy, asthma and nasal polyposis. The mission of the group is to explore regulatory mechanisms of type 2 immune responses to support the prevention and therapy of chronic inflammatory diseases.

Metabolites of the polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) arachidonic acid (“eicosanoids”) play central and versatile roles in type 2 immune responses (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28622139). However, current therapies fail to sufficiently target these important mediators. Thus, a particular focus of our work is to identify immunomodulatory mechanisms and molecules, which regulate eicosanoid-driven airway inflammation.

Macrophages accumulate on the surface of helminth larvae and start to express the enzyme cyclooxygenase-2 (red) and its positive regulator HIF-1α (green), allowing them to produce high levels of immuneregulatory prostaglandins.