Pediatric immunology team
preventive medicine, inflammation, autoimmunity
Research aim
The pediatric immunology team focuses on the under-explored research field of immune response modification for the prevention of immune-driven diseases. The goal of our research is to develop interventions that can prevent disease manifestations.
About us
The pediatric immunology team is fascinated by how antigen-driven activation of the adaptive immune system can contribute to disease, and can be targeted to avoid disease from developing or cure if disease has already occurred. Although much of the research is pre-clinical, the eventual goal is to discover approaches that can prevent the clinical presentation of immune-driven disorders including asthma, and autoimmune forms of arthritis. Approaches we use include the genetic screening and study of primary immunodeficiency patients. These are patients whose immune system’s ability to fight infectious diseases and cancer is compromised. Guided by information from primary immunodeficiencies, the team explores immune pathway modification to prevent the clinical presentation of autoimmune or immunometabolic diseases. For this, the team focuses on diseases for which key biomarkers or drivers are already known. Important is that although much of our research is pre-clinical, the goal is to help develop tools to prevent disease in people at risk. This latter research field has been especially under-investigated, and is focus of the pediatric immunology team’s efforts.