Leukocyte dynamics
deuterium labeling, turnover rates, lifespan
Research aim
We aim to obtain quantitative insights into the dynamics of leukocytes throughout the body, including their production, loss and migration. These insights are required to understand the immunological changes that occur in different diseases.
About us
We reveal such quantitative insights by combining experimental work with mathematical analyses. Experimental immunologists and mathematicians are working together on a daily basis, ensuring a permanent dialogue between the two. Using this interdisciplinary approach, we found that naive T-cell maintenance occurs fundamentally differently in laboratory mice and humans. While in mice, naive cells are fully dependent on thymic output, in humans they are largely maintained by T-cell proliferation. This underscores the need for -and hence our focus on- in vivo studies in humans. Since this has its natural limitations, we also make use of wildling mice, which are more natural than clean laboratory mouse, because of their natural microbiome.
Although it is well-known that the vast majority of immune cells reside in lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissues, most insights into the human immune system are based on cells from the blood, a place where only a minority of immune cells reside. Extremely little is known about the dynamic properties and long-term maintenance of immune cells in human tissues. We aim to fill this knowledge gap and unravel how immunity is maintained by lymphocytes throughout the body. With this knowledge, we aim to lay the basis for the optimal design of immune therapies against cancer, treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases, and development of novel vaccination strategies.