We introduce: Dr. Nicola Diny
Nicola Diny is interested in the influence of the tissue environment on immune cell function. Recently recruited from the Francis Crick Institute (London / UK), Diny is now heading a junior research group at the Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology (ICCCP) at the University Hospital Bonn. Together with her team, she is focusing on eosinophil tissue adaptation in the context of health and disease.
Ms Diny, you are heading a newly formed research group at the ICCCP. Could you briefly tell us about your main research interests?
My main interest is around understanding immune cell function in the tissue context. In particular, I want to explore how the eosinophil, a type of granulocyte, adapts to the local tissue niche, how this adaptation changes in the context of disease and how eosinophils interact locally with other immune and stromal cells. This is a new way of thinking about eosinophils, which are traditionally seen as endstage, cytotoxic effector cells.
A new way of thinking about eosinophils, that is actually based on findings you made during your time as a Postdoc at the Francis Crick Institute, right?
At the Crick, I studied intestinal eosinophils and discovered that these cells adapt to the local environment. This adaptation was partially driven by the transcription factor aryl hydrocarbon receptor, which changed the eosinophil transcriptome after cells enter the tissue. Eosinophil function changed towards a more immune-regulatory cell, increased interactions with the extracellular matrix and reduced their ability to degranulate. This opened up a new field of eosinophils tissue adaptation which I plan to investigate further.
That sounds like a promising, albeit very broad field. How exactly do you intend to address the questions that arise?
I will study the plasticity of eosinophils across the body and in the context of disease. Eosinophils are known to contribute to diseases like asthma and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) but more recently beneficial roles in bacterial infections, tissue regeneration and cancer have been discovered as well. This highlights key questions on how eosinophil function changes in different diseases and across tissues. I recently established that eosinophils undergo tissue adaptation in the small intestine as part of their homeostatic regulation. To study eosinophil plasticity, I will create an atlas of eosinophils across tissues in mice, explore the regulation of intestinal eosinophils and how it is changed during inflammation, and study human eosinophil function in the context of health and diseases like IBD. To achieve this, my group will use spatial and single cell technologies in addition to genetic models to explore eosinophil functions within tissues.
We are more than happy to welcome you at research site here in Bonn. What was particularly important to you when choosing the location?
For me, the opportunity for translational research with access to patient samples and clinical collaborations was an important reason to choose the University Hospital Bonn. At the same time, I was keen to be integrated into the broad and excellent immunology research that exists within the ImmunoSensation cluster. I look forward to exciting collaborations with my new colleagues.
(Interview with Dr. Nicola Diny, Bonn, June 19th, 2023)
Short biography
Nicola Diny studied Biomedicine and Biotechnology in Vienna and Molecular Medicine at the Charité Berlin. She obtained her PhD from Johns Hopkins University where she worked in the group of Noel Rose and Daniela Cihakova to understand how eosinophils drive inflammation and chronic adverse remodelling of the heart. For this work she received a Predoctoral Fellowship from the American Heart Association and multiple basic and translational research awards. Nicola Diny continued to study eosinophil tissue functions and joined Gitta Stockinger's group at the Francis Crick Institute for her postdoc, supported by an EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship and then a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship. She is now continuing her work on eosinophil tissue adaptation heading a Junior Research Group at the Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology at the University Hospital Bonn.
Contact
Dr. Nicola Diny
Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology
University Hospital Bonn
email: nicola.diny@uni-bonn.de
