Dresden International Graduate School for Biomedicine and Bioengineering

In my tenure I have worked extensively with the lung. Asthma, COPD and lung infections were the main diseases that I have been focusing on. In that regard, I have worked on the role of T-cells in the pathogenesis of lung inflammatory diseases. Furthermore, I specialize in Epigenetic regulation and Regulatory mechanisms of tolerance in the lung. Our biggest finding is Notch4 in Regulatory T-cell (Treg) identified in both Asthma and Viral lung infections, which is now being considered in pre-clinical studies as a new therapy for various lung inflammatory diseases.

Currently our lab in Dresden focuses on tolerance mechanisms in the lung and liver. Furthermore, we investigate rare, newly-discovered human pathogens and their pathological mechanisms in the body both on innate and adaptive immune responses. In details, we try to investigate the role of particulate matter, a massive pollutant, on developing mal adaptive immune reaction later in life or transgenerationally via epigenetic changes. Moreover, we try to understand tolerance mechanisms in the lung affected by extracellular vesicles (EVs) in various diseases, namely Asthma, COPD and viral lung infection. In addition to that, we try to investigate mechanisms by which rare human pathogenic bacteria can influence our immune system leading to disease. For that, we are currently working with different bacterial species namely, Roseomonas mucosa, Wohlfahrtiimonas chitiniclastica and Chryseobacterium indologenes.

Liver-wise, we try to understand the contribution of Treg cells in the pathogenesis of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). For that we employ both mouse models as well as human studies to investigate that and the role of dietary intervention on tolerance breakdown and re-establishment.