Institute of Immunology & Institute of Clinical
Molecular Biology,
Christian-Albrecht-University of Kiel
Arnold-Heller-Str. 3
24105 Kiel
Germany
Lab Website:
immunologie-kiel.de/arbeitsgruppen/intestinale-immunregulation/
Research Interests:
We aim to understand the failure of tolerance mechanisms in the human immune system during chronic inflammatory diseases. Therein, we specifically investigate the role of altered CD4+ T cell responses against microbial antigens in different immune-mediated diseases using novel direct analyses of antigen-specific T cells. In ongoing studies we address the following research topics:
- Alterations of microbiota-T cell interactions in chronic inflammatory diseases
- Modulation of antigen-specific T cell responses by TCR cross-reactivity
- regulation of chronically activated microbiota-specific T cells
Using novel approaches to analyze antigen-reactive Th cells directly ex vivo from human samples, we are conducting studies to understand why in patients with chronic inflammatory diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease or allergies, tolerance mechanisms fail. Antigen-reactive Th cell analysis is combined with powerful state-of-the-art analytical technologies, such as multidimensional flow cytometry, (single cell) transcriptomics, TCR sequencing and proteomics, to provide single cell information at high resolution.
