Research Projects

Our research is aimed to a better understanding of the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases and to develop innovative therapeutical concepts for immunomodulation and reestablishment of immunological tolerance. We use a wide spectrum of immunological and cell biology techniques, including isolation of rare cell subsets from blood and thymus, immunophenotyping, immunohistochemistry and fluorescence confocal microscopy. In addition, our group has plenty of experience in quantification of gene expression by real time PCR and laser capture microdissection.
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Specific projects include:

Functional characterization of regulatory T cells in patients with neuroimmunological autoimmune diseases

Selection of autoantigen epitopes by antigen presenting cells in the human thymus

Thymus-specific proteases. A proteomics approach

Cathepsins and their natural inhibitors in CTL and NK cell cytotoxicity

Cooperation between T and B cells in the thymus from myasthenia gravis patients

Investigation of autoreactive helper T cells before and during central nervous sytem autoimmune disease

Specific treatment of autoimmunity with recombinant invariant chain in which CLIP is replaced by antigenic epitopes: Investigation of tolerance induction in vivo using MHC class II tetramers

Development of a Th2 vaccine against autoimmune diseases using Interleukin-4

The autoimmune response against the muscle-specific receptor tyrosine-kinase (MUSK) and its relevance for the development of myasthenia gravis