Parasitic worms help Professor Clarissa Prazeres da Costa and her team better understand the human immune system in order to find solutions to global health problems.
Why do blood clots develop in the first place—and why do they tend to recur? LMU researcher Konstantin Stark believes that the answers lie in the immune system.
At RCI, the Regensburg Center for Interventional Immunology, international research groups develop immunotherapies and cellular therapies in order to help treating patients suffering from tumors, chronic inflammation or autoimmunity.
From junior research group leader to full professor and spokesperson of the Research Center for Infectious Diseases (ZINF) at the University of Würzburg. This is the scientific career path of Cynthia Sharma.
Genetically modified immune cells can offer precious additional time to patients with advanced multiple myeloma. However, these therapies lose their impact as the molecules on cancer cells that immune cells recognize gradually vanish. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now identified one of the molecular mechanisms behind this process. In an initial study they succeeded in blocking it using an existing cancer drug.
The cancer gene MYC camouflages tumours by suppressing alarm signals that normally activate the immune system. This finding from a new study offers a promising way to improve existing cancer therapies as well as develop new ones.
Whether in the gut, mouth, or on the skin, the human body is colonized by bacteria. Most of them are beneficial and we find distinct microbial communities at different body sites. A team led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and King’s College London has now found strong evidence that bacteria from the mouth migrate to the gut in chronic liver disease and exacerbate the disease.
A research team at the University of Würzburg has, for the first time, uncovered how E. coli bacteria sneak into the prostate. The discovery reveals a hidden infection pathway and opens the door to potential new treatments for bacterial prostatitis.
Regulatory T cells (Tregs), a specialized type of immune cells, are usually seen as “peacekeepers” that prevent excessive immune attacks. Surprisingly, a new study published in “Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy” shows that Tregs utilize inflammatory signals to start repair processes following cancer therapy. The research conducted by the LIT Cooperation Group “Innate Immune Sensing in Cancer and Transplantation” in cooperation with researchers from the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) uncovers how the body`s own immune system can be harnessed to repair the intestinal lining and improve survival.
Detect influenza viruses quickly and easily with chewing gum or a lollipop: researchers from Würzburg, Braunschweig and Cologne demonstrate with a new diagnostic tool how this works.
