Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network: SIGNATURE

Other projects funded by the EU

The DRFZ is partner of the European network SIGNATURE (Single cell in inflammatory autoimmune diseases) for the training of pre-doctoral researchers:

SIGNATURE is led by the Fundación Pública Andaluza Progreso y Salud in Spain, and more specifically by the researchers Marta Alarcón-Riquelme and Concepción Marañón Lizana.

Twelve other partners are part of the network, including the academic partners such as University of Western Brittany in France, the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology in Belgium, the German Rheumatism Research Centre Berlin, a Leibniz-Institute, in Germany and the University of Catania in Italy, among others. Biotechnological companies such as Atrys Health and Altrabio are also actively participating in the network.

Specifically, and within the framework of this network, a ten pre-doctoral researchers will be recruited to follow a training programme in the consortium’s partner organisations. In this way, the doctoral students will be in contact with the academic and non-academic research sectors; receiving training related to research, innovation and long-term employability in the field of biomedical sciences. The participating researchers will have an international professional development plan supervised by the relevant scientists in each of the organisations participating in the network.

The project at DRFZ is to study imprints of mucosal immune reactions on blood leukocytes in different groups of autoimmune patients, with the aim to explore the utility of mucosal immune signatures for precision medicine, and to understand microbiota-immune system interactions implicated in chronic inflammation vs tolerance. The project includes: mass cytometry, precision medicine, single-cell bioinformatics, immune profiling, mucosal immunity and microbiota cytometry.