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  • Programme Area 4

Clinical Rheumatology

  • Adaptive Immunity
  • Autoimmune diseases
  • CAR-T-Cell-therapy
  • Innate Immunity
  • Rheumatoid arthritis

Investigating the molecular basis of inflammation and development of curative treatment approaches

Research into the fundamentals of the immune response not only enables a better understanding of autoimmunity and inflammation, but is also the basis for the development of new and targeted therapeutic approaches for autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases.

Therefore, our group investigates basal molecular regulatory and control mechanisms that govern the innate and adaptive immune response. A specific focus are the role of distinct immune cell types such as macrophages, T cells and B cells during homeostasis or during inflammation and autoimmune disease. Another focus is a better understanding of the impact of metabolic processes on immune cell function (Immunometabolism).

Our research is performed using mouse models as well as by clinical and molecular characterization of patients suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases or autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). By identifying new basic principles and targets we seek to design new therapeutic approaches for these patients and directly apply them in our clinic (including the use of novel targeted therapies such as CAR T cells).

Team

Group leader
Prof. Dr. med. Gerhard Krönke, MHBA

Scientists
Dr. Johan Verhagen
Dr. Maria Dzamukova
Dr.  Jean-Philippe Auger
Dr. Artur Wilhelm

PhD students
Eugenia Diez Garcia de Olalla
Thanh Hang Le
Hilal Garibagaoglu

Technician
Anja Fleischmann
Zahra Valizadeh Arschad
Stefano Bianco

Master student
Arthur Bilinsky

Main cooperation partners

Eicke Latz, Mir-Farzin Mashreghi, Max Löhning, Antigoni Triantafyllopoulou, Anja Hauser, Frank Buttgereit

Anika Grüneboom (ISAS, Dortmund)

Georg Schett, Jan Tuckermann, Stefan Uderhardt, Dimitrios Mougiakakos, Andreas Mackensen, Markus Hoffmann

Miltenyi Biotech

Andres Hidalgo, Gernot Schabbauer, Rikard Holmdahl

Janssen, Kyverna, Novartis