Adopting a holistic approach, the researchers are investigating why lifestyle or environmental factors such as obesity, smoking or lack of exercise interfere with the programming of immune cells and thus cause “metaflammation,” a chronic inflammation triggered by the immune system. They are studying the process by which cells interact within the inflamed tissue and how molecular signaling pathways contribute to the development of diseases while the metaflammation is present.
Interdisciplinary collaboration
The new scientific alliance forms part of the Life and Health Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA), one of six at the University of Bonn. They are where researchers from its various faculties and disciplines come together to collaborate on research topics of great relevance for the future. Besides pooling the expertise of researchers from the Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and Faculty of Arts, the CRC also involves researchers from the DZNE in Bonn, the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne and the Braunschweig Integrated Centre of Systems Biology. Most subprojects in the new CRC will be handled by researchers from the University Hospital Bonn and the Life and Medical Sciences (LIMES) Institute.
Members of the TRA Mathematics, Modelling and Simulation of Complex Systems at the University of Bonn will also be on hand to model the data from experiments and analyze them using bioinformatics. The researchers plan to undertake further study of the newly discovered mechanisms, both on individual patients and in the DZNE’s large-scale “Rhineland Study,” which focuses on the factors that promote healthy aging.
Findings to boost prevention and unlock new treatments
“One of the things that makes our Collaborative Research Center unique is the approach we’re taking, which is drawn from system immunology,” says Professor Eicke Latz from the Institute for Innate Immunity at the University Hospital Bonn, who is also Co-Speaker for the University’s ImmunoSensation2 Cluster of Excellence. “We want to use it to understand some of the complex mechanisms that cause diseases.” In other words, the researchers are looking to establish causal links between all manner of different triggers of chronic inflammation on the one hand and the programming of immune cells on the other, without losing sight of the effect this has on the organism as a whole.
The hope is that these findings will lead to new potential treatments and drugs being developed. The newly discovered mechanisms that lead to metaflammation are also expected to supply the knowledge needed to improve the prevention of common conditions caused by an unhealthy lifestyle and environmental influences, an area in which members of the TRA Individuals, Institutions and Societies will also be involved. In addition, the findings will contribute to a better understanding of why various common conditions exacerbate the progression of COVID-19.
Media contact:
Prof. Dr. Eicke Latz
Institute for Innate Immunity
Phone: +49 228 287 51239 (office)
Eicke.Latz@uni-bonn.de
