ENLIGHT-TEN
June 2019
ENLIGHT-TEN at youth event
ENLIGHT-TEN was at the IdeenExpo, Europe’s biggest youth event for science & technology. News
June 2019
Publication in Nature Communications
ESR Marisa Stebegg shows that faecal transplants can rejuvenate the immunesystem in the gut. News
May 2019
Congratulations
Congratulations to Marisa Stebegg who successfully defended her PhD. News
March 2019
Congratulations
Congratulations to Martina Lubrano di Ricco who successfully defended her PhD. News
April 2019
Day of Immunology
ENLIGHT-TEN celebrated the Day of Immunology by various activities for a lay audience. Read more here
March 2019
Congratulations
Congratulations to Martina Lubrano di Ricco who successfully defended her PhD. News
February 2019
Scientists map key genes regulating immune cells - ENLIGHT-TEN featured in CORDIS
CORDIS journalists covered the ENLIGHT-TEN project explaining some of its results to the general public. News
January 2019
CRISPR-based screen reveals gene networks central to modulating #Th2 cell function
Our ESR Tomas Gomes and PI Sarah Teichmann together with colleagues published the results of genome-wide CRISPR Screens in T Helper Cells in Cell News
November 2018
Seats available for the ENLIGHT-TEN winter school 2019
ENLIGHT-TEN invites external students to register for the winter school "How to Succeed in Finding and Getting a Job for Biomedical Researchers" News
October 2018
Joint review on Germinal Center Response by our ESRs and PIs
3 ESRs and 2 PIs of ENLIGHT-TEN joined forces and published an interesting review on the regulation of the Germinal Center Response. News
October 2018
Nobel Prize for Immunologists
The nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2018 was awarded to immunologists James Allison and Tasuku Honjo. News
September 2018
ECI 2018 poster price for
ENLIGHT-TEN student
Congratulations to our PhD student Marisa Stebegg who won a poster prize at the ECI 2018 a major immunology conference. News
September 2018
Successful symposium organised by our students
The ENLIGHT-TEN PhD students organised a successful satellite symposium at the ECI 2018. News
August 2018
450 visitors at ENLIGHT-TEN
art exhibition
The art exhibition "Art Enlightening Immunology" from 30 August until 5 September in Amsterdam not only attracted more than 450 visitors but also stimulated interesting discussions. News
August 2018
Micro-grants for the 2019 MCAA General Assembly
Call for applications for a micro-grant to attend the next MCAA General Assembly in Vienna 25 & 26 February 2019 now open. See
July 2018
Arts Enlightening Immunology
ENLIGHT-TEN proudly announces the exhibition "Arts Enlightening Immunology" which will open on 30 August in Amsterdam. Three internationally renowned artists visited the ENLIGHT-TEN labs for immunology inspired artworks. Join us for an exciting event!
June 2018
ENLIGHT-TEN PI featured women leader in UK healthcare
ENLIGHT-TEN PI Sarah Teichmann is featured as one of 30 women leaders in UK healthcare. see
May 2018
Visitors' day
ENLIGHT-TEN at HZI visitors' day News
April 2018
Summer school on Translational Medicine big success
Our summer school at BAYER was a big success with all participants saying they will recommend the course News/Events/Results
March 2018
ENLIGHT-TENed by big data: advancing T cell Immunology
Register now for the ECI satellite symposium organised by the PhD students of ENLIGHT-TEN News/Events/Results
March 2018
Bridging the academia and industry gap in drug development
The webinar offered by MCAA on 23 March at 13:00 CET will introduce you to key aspects in the collaboration of industry and academia. Info and registration
February 2018
Open ENLIGHT-TEN PhD position at iMM in Lisbon
We are looking for a candidate with a strong immunology background for a project with Marc Veldhoen News/Events/Results
September 2017
Funding for networking activities
Funding for EFIS-Immunology Letters (IL) study group T_CELL_CONNECT_EUROPE received News/Events/Results
September 2017
Supervisor of the year
ENLIGHT-TEN coordinator Jochen Hühn has been awarded "Supervisor of the Year" News/Events/Results
August 2017
Science Immunology paper
by ENLIGHT-TEN PIs Graca, Sousa, Linterman and colleagues. See News/Events/Results
July 2017
Attractive ESR position available
Attractive ESR position as ENLIGHT-TEN PhD student available. Please go to menu item News/Events/Results
June 2017
FameLab talk of our ESR Luis Almeida
Watch the FameLab talk of our ESR Luis Almeida on the immune system and autoimmune diseases.
March 2017
ESR position at MUW filled
The position for ESR4 at the Medical University Vienna has been filled. We are pleased to welcome Narendra Dhele to our consortium.
February 2017
Attractive ESR position available
Attractive ESR position as ENLIGHT-TEN PhD student available. Please go to menu item News/Events/Results
December 2016
YouTube Video
Follicular Helper T cells have a very particular role in the immune response. Saumya Kumar explains how. Please go to menu item General Public
December 2016
ENLIGHT-TEN newsletter no. 2
The ENLIGHT-TEN newsletter no.2 is online. Please go to menu item General Public.
June 2016
ENLIGHT-TEN newsletter no. 1
The ENLIGHT-TEN newsletter no.1 is online. Please go to menu item General Public.
June 2016
ENLIGHT-TEN flyer no. 1
Find out what ENLIGHT-TEN has in common with football and view our new flyer here.
Our mission
The mission of ENLIGHT-TEN is to provide cross-disciplinary training in
Understanding and manipulating T cell responses is critical to therapeutic intervention in a wide-range of immune-mediated pathologies. The use of immunotherapy to increase anti-tumor responses has recently gained considerable attention, and suppressing the immune response to ameliorate autoimmunity is an equally important goal.
The growing complexity of T cell differentiation
To manipulate T cell responses in a way that brings maximum therapeutic benefit, it is necessary to generate a detailed understanding of precisely how T cells activate and differentiate following antigen encounter. Recent years have revolutionised our view on CD4+ helper T cell differentiation, with a recognition that it is far more complex and plastic than we previously appreciated1. In addition, we now realise that diverse extrinsic cues (e.g. nutrient availability, oxygen concentrations, salt balance, the microbiome) play an even bigger role than we anticipated in guiding T cell differentiation2. Thus, there are many more T cell fates that we previously realised, and many more factors that influence fate choice.
Emerging technologies in -omics/bioinformatics
At the same time, the technologies available to study cell identity have changed dramatically3,4. The new era of sequencing technologies has facilitated data gathering on an unprecedented scale and this has been accompanied by the emergence of novel gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9 developed by a member of our consortium. Thus, the tools available to apply to the understanding of biological processes have advanced significantly, and the field is embarking on a new era of high dimensional data collection and tailored gene manipulation.
The details of the specific research projects that are being offered can be found here.
The Power of Dual Training
One of the challenges created by rapid advance of sequencing technologies is the gulf between the labs that have expertise in T cell functional biology and those that are equipped to handle "big data". The aim of ENLIGHT-TEN is to train a cohort of early stage researchers (ESRs) to be comfortable in both areas: to have an in-depth understanding of functional T cell immunology alongside the capacity to generate and process large data sets. Thereto, ENLIGHT-TEN has developed a cross-disciplinary, high-quality educational programme to provide all its PhD students with specialist high-level research training, a broad scientific skill set and experience in both academic and industrial working environments. The members of our network have expertise in RNA-seq, Bi-seq, ChIP-seq, promoter capture HiC, metabolomics, genome-editing using CRISPR-Cas9 technology and bioinformatics in addition to critical mass in T cell functional assays and disease models. We are ideally placed to provide a broad cross-disciplinary training that will empower trainees to rapidly take advantage of evolving technologies and apply them to biological problems. By the end of the project, all PhD students will possess
In particular, the fellows will:
- Acquire hands-on skills in specialised research methods and experimental techniques
- Obtain comprehensive training in designing and executing experiments, in project presentation techniques, and in manuscript and grant proposal writing
- Be introduced to ethical aspects of science and good scientific practice
- Learn about intellectual property rights (IPR), patent issues and commercial exploitation of research results
- Have secondments to other network participants to foster mobility, to obtain complementary research skills not available at the host institution and to be exposed to a different sector
Training activities will be organized within a framework of eight training modules:
- University-based education, local training
- Research project-based training
- Personal career development plan
- Annual network meetings
- Annual Summer Schools
- International Symposium
- Web-based training
- Secondments
The details of the training modules can be found here.
Consortium members
ENLIGHT-TEN consists of ten beneficiaries and six partners from eight nations within the EU, bringing a balanced portfolio of expertise bridging in-depth knowledge of T cell differentiation and pathophysiology of autoimmune and allergic diseases, through to bioinformatic analysis of large data sets. Given the importance of bioinformatic analysis within this programme, the involvement of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) is a major strength of our network. EBI is part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), an inter-governmental organisation, and is world-leading in the generation, analysis and storage of large-scale bioinformatic data.
The details of the consortium members can be found here.
References
2 Bonelli, M., et al. Helper T cell plasticity: impact of extrinsic and intrinsic signals on transcriptomes and epigenomes. Current topics in microbiology and immunology 381, 279-326 (2014).
3 Chattopadhyay, P.K., Gierahn, T.M., Roederer, M. & Love, J.C. Single-cell technologies for monitoring immune systems. Nat Immunol 15, 128-135 (2014).
4 Kidd, B.A., Peters, L.A., Schadt, E.E. & Dudley, J.T. Unifying immunology with informatics and multiscale biology. Nat Immunol 15, 118-127 (2014).
5 Spreafico, R., Mitchell, S. & Hoffmann, A. Training the 21st Century Immunologist. Trends Immunol 36, 283–285 (2015).
6 Schultze, J.L. Teaching 'big data' analysis to young immunologists. Nat Immunol 16, 902–905 (2015).
