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In order for the human immune system to effectively fight off pathogens, B cells need to smash up and reassemble their own DNA. Michela Di Virgilio searches for factors controlling this important process, which also have crucial implications for our predisposition to cancer.

With its spin-off support program SPOT, the MDC is giving a helping hand to teams looking to start a company. Three of the most promising projects have now been selected. For our series “We at the MDC” we spoke with Dr. Ingo Curdt, coordinator of the funding program.

Certain immune system cells are able to make tumors especially visible to the body’s own defenses – if only cancer cells didn’t prevent them from doing so. Researchers, including those from the MDC and ECRC , have now published a joint article in PNAS explaining how tumors block the immune cells in their immediate environment.

Immunologist Kathrin de la Rosa investigates how the body’s own B cells protect us from infectious diseases. In the laboratory, she hopes to modify these cells in such a way that they produce powerful antibodies against pathogens which have overwhelmed our immune system until now.

A severe course of COVID-19 does not solely result in a strong immune reaction – rather, the immune response is caught in a continuous loop of activation and inhibition. This is reported in Cell by experts of the nationwide deCOI research network, including colleagues at the MDC.

A research group at the MDC has discovered a protein that protects mature B lymphocytes from stress-induced cell death. It also helps immune cells produce effective antibodies, which can stop the pathogen at different points in the infection.

A chlamydia infection triggers an inflammatory response at the cellular level. MDC researchers conducted experiments in cell cultures to examine the role that the enzyme GBP1 plays in this response. They have now published their findings in Cell Reports.

Previous approaches to treat multiple sclerosis have focused on T and B cells. A group at the MDC now presents a new strategy in "Nature Immunology". According to this strategy, it may be more effective to fight another form of immune cells - certain monocytes.

Strategies for treating multiple sclerosis have so far focused primarily on T and B cells. A group of MDC researchers has now unveiled a new approach in Nature Immunology – one that seeks to increase treatment effectiveness by selectively targeting another type of immune cell called monocytes.

VRAC/LRRC8 chloride channels do not only play a decisive role in the transport of cytostatics, amino acids and neurotransmitters. They can also transport the important messenger substance cGAMP from cell to cell and thus strengthen the immune response to infections with DNA viruses.