Research Projects
a) Autoimmune mechanisms in inflammatory heart disease
(Dr. Przemyslaw Blyszczuk)
The current projects address the roles of specific mediators and cytokines involved in the development and resolution of heart-specific autoimmunity, and in the progression of acute myocarditis into end stage heart failure. Most hypotheses are addressed in vivo using the autoimmune myocarditis model, specific cytokine agonists/antagonists, and various knockout mice lacking specific cytokines, chemokines and/or their receptors, if appropriate.
b) Inflammatory progenitor cells in cardiac remodeling
(Dr. Gabriela Kania)
The current projects build on our observation that a defined, CD133+ expressing subpopulation of heart-infiltarting monocyte like progenitor cells maintains multilineage differentiation capacity. Depending on the local “cytokine milieu” these cells differentiate either in mature monocytes/macrophages, fibroblasts, andeven cardiomyocyte like cells. Using several mouse models of heart injury, we will address the question, how pharmacological treatments might influence the differentiation fate of these progenitors in the injured heart. We strongly believe, that appropriate pharmacological in vivo targeting of these cells will be the innovative approach to specifically promote regeneration instead of pathological remodeling even in the inflammatory milieu of an injured heart. Given rather disappointing results of clinical and basic research studies addressing stem cell based therapies, our approach offers a feasible and innovative way to realistic cell-based treatments.
Clinical significance and collaborations
Emphasis is given that our working hypotheses are guided by clinical observations. In turn, we are interested in a straight transfer of our experimental findings to clinical practice. Therefore, our group established close national and international collaborations with clinicians and basic researchers. Our partners are not only located at the Institute of Physiology and the Zurich University Hospital, but also at the University Hospitals of Berne and Basle, at the Swiss Federal Institute in Zürich, at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Science in Vienna, at the Charité University Medicine Berlin, and at the Harvard Medical School in Boston. At the moment we are worldwide leading experts in heart-specific autoimmunity.