—We are delighted to welcome Prof. Dr. Oliver Brüstle, head of the Institute of Reconstructive Neurobiology at the University Hospital Bonn, to the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation2. Oliver Brüstle is a leading expert in stem cell research and regenerative medicine, bringing an exciting new dimension to the Cluster's interdisciplinary focus on immunity in health and disease.
—The “Bone2Gene” project of researchers from the University of Bonn and University Hospital Bonn has been awarded funding worth €1,000,000 as part of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s GO-Bio initial program. The money is now enabling the team arround ImmunoSensation Member Prof. Peter Krawitz, to progress to the feasibility phase and get its product ready for market launch. “Bone2Gene“ is using artificial intelligence (AI) to make genetic bone conditions known as skeletal dysplasia easier to spot and diagnose.
Inflammatory diseases influence the course of hair loss
—Asthma, atopic dermatitis or Hashimoto's thyroiditis as concomitant diseases are risk factors for clinical features associated with a poor prognosis in circular hair loss, also known as alopecia areata (AA). In patients with three atopic diseases, namely atopic dermatitis, asthma and rhinitis, the average age of onset of AA is about ten years earlier than in patients without chronic inflammatory comorbidities. This has now been established by researchers from Bonn in a large cohort study of affected patients. Their results have now been published in the journal "Allergy".
New junior professorship for female immunity in Bonn
—Anchoring gender perspectives in research: with this aim in mind, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia is promoting gender denomination for professorships. The University of Excellence Bonn is now receiving a new junior professorship for female immunity at the Faculty of Medicine from the programme. The junior professorship is intended to expand the research focus on immunology at the University of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) to include important issues relating to gender and gender-specific aspects in immunology and women's health.
Welcoming Valentin Sebastian Schäfer to ImmunoSensation
—The Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation is delighted to welcome Prof. Dr. Valentin Sebastian Schäfer as its newest member. Valentin Schäfer is a distinguished physician-scientist based at the University Hospital Bonn, where he serves as the head of the Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at the Clinic of Internal Medicine III.
—The identification of genes involved in diseases is one of the major challenges of biomedical research. Researchers at the University of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) have developed a method that makes their identification much easier and faster: they light up genome sequences in the cell nucleus. In contrast to complex screenings using established methods, the NIS-Seq method can be used to investigate the genetic determinants of almost any biological process in human cells. The study has now been published in Nature Biotechnology.
The ‘choreographers’ of tissue development and function
—The German Research Foundation (DFG) is setting up a new research group at the University of Bonn. ‘MagNet: Macrophage Niche Network Dynamics’ is dedicated to the systematic study of macrophages, specialised immune cells that play a central role in tissue development and function. The spokesperson of the research group is ImmunoSensation member Prof Dr Elvira Mass from the University of Bonn, supported by co-spokesperson Prof Dr Falk Nimmerjahn from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU).
—Our Cluster is delighted to welcome Prof. Dr. Anne-Katrin Pröbstel as a new member. Joining from the University of Basel, where she established herself as a leading expert in neuroimmunology and immune-microbiota interactions, Anne-Katrin Pröbstel brings her innovative research to our thriving immunological community in Bonn.
—Our Cluster is delighted to announce that Prof. Dr. Kaan Boztug, a renowned immunologist and pediatrician from Vienna, has joined our growing scientific community.
