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The bone marrow microenvironment (BMM) represents the ‘home’ for normal haematopoietic stem cells (HSC) or blood stem cells, which give rise to all the various blood cells. The respective interplay between the BMM and HSC is slowly being elucidated, but evidence for a definitive role of the proteins of the blood clotting system for the control of haematopoietic homeostasis is scarce and non-existent in the case of leukaemia, a malignant disease of HSC. 

In our project our subjects experience either too much, or too little thyroid hormones in their body for a certain period of time. Before and after this time period, we examine their cognition and perform an extensive neuroimaging. We are thereby able to identify the area in the brain which is altered by changes of thyroid hormone household. Additionally, we examine patients with a variation of thyroid hormone receptors in the brain. We are interested to analyse the areas of the brain causing the symptoms, possibly leading to therapies targeting these receptors. 

Clinical studies over the last decade have demonstrated that on average SGA (small for gestational age) fetuses show signs of cardiovascular remodeling and have higher postnatal cardiovascular risks. Newer findings suggest that SGA induces primary cardiac and vascular changes that could explain the increased predisposition to cardiovascular disease in adult life even.

Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) is an aggressive mature lymphoma of the diffuse-large B cell type which exclusively manifests in the central nervous system compartment. Patients > 60 years compromise > 50% of the PCNSL patients. During the last years progress has been made in prolonging  survival,  reducing  toxicity  and  improving  quality  of  life  for  this  challenging subgroup of patients. But in contrast to the younger patients we are still facing a palliative treatment approach. 

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. This is generally attributable to an underlying pathology called atherosclerosis. There is accumulating evidence that two main causative factors of atherosclerosis, being disturbances in the lipids and inflammation, are intermingled. Previously, small experiments confirmed that lipids and inflammation can influence each other. In these experiments, I focused on a specific part of the inflammatory system (chemokines) and lipids, called high-density lipoproteins (HDL).

Cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells are a diverse group of immune cells consisting of T-lymphocytes and natural killer cells, which can be produced from mononuclear cells of a stem cell donor in 10-12 days. Administration of CIK-Cells may help to prevent the recurrence of malignant blood system disorders in patients who already underwent stem cell transplantation. This research study on the efficacy of CIK cells is carried out in close cooperation with the pediatric hospitals of Dusseldorf and Heidelberg as well as the medical centers in Frankfurt and Mainz.

The Clinician Scientist Program (CSP) Cancer Immunotherapy is a scientific program with focus on tumor immunology. The CSP supports medical doctors to pursue a career in academic medicine by combining scientific and clinical work. The focus of the CSP lies within translational cancer immunotherapy. Within the last years, various novel immunotherapeutic platforms, like bispecific- or immunoregulatory antibodies, therapeutic vaccinations or gene modified T cells, were approved for clinical application.

Psoriasis is an autoinflammatory disease of skin, affecting 150 Mio. people worldwide. While standard therapies show high response rates, they are also expensive and frequently lead to the development of side effects or therapy resistance. Therefore, new therapy approaches are needed. Previously, we identified a signaling pathway that is upregulated in psoriasis, while its inhibition blocks the development of psoriasis.

Despite the social significance of alcohol dependence, it has not yet been possible to understand the neurobiological causes and derive new treatment approaches. Due to the important role of social interactions and psychosocial stress in the development and therapy of alcohol dependence, the current project focuses on the neuropeptide oxytocin. Oxytocin has an important function in social bonds and interacts with the stress system and the reward system in the brain.