Talk title:
Lymphoid organ fibroblastic reticular cells control immune cell function
Abstract:
Fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs) are a crucial part of the stromal cell infrastructure of secondary lymphoid organs. Lymphoid organ fibroblasts form specialized niches for immune cell interactions and thereby govern lymphocyte activation and differentiation. In recent years, the use of specialized mouse models in combination with single-cell transcriptomics has facilitated the elaboration of the molecular FRC landscape at an unprecedented resolution.
In this seminar, I will discuss novel findings from high-resolution transcriptomic analyses that refine our understanding of FRC differentiation and activation processes in the context of infection and inflammation. Moreover, I will present recent data on how changes in the activation state of stromal cell-underpinned niches govern the efficient interaction of immune cells during immune responses in murine models and in human disease.
Biography:
Burkhard Ludewig is currently acting as the head of the Medical Research Center and the Institute of Immunobiology at the Kantonsspital St. Gallen, Switzerland. His research interests are focused on the interaction of viruses with the innate and adaptive immune system. Furthermore, his laboratory has established transgenic mouse model for in vivo stromal cell targeting.
He is affiliated with the Life Science Faculty of the University of Zürich and serves as an affiliated PI of the Zurich Life Science Graduate School. Further academic activities include teaching of biology students of the ETH Zürich and the University of Zürich in immunology, and supervising PhD students from the Life Science Zürich Graduate School.
Professor Ludewig graduated in 1992 at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Free University (FU) Berlin, Germany, and received a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine in 1995 at the FU Berlin following a three year experimental work at the Robert-Koch Institute, Berlin. Following two short postdoctoral positions at the Robert-Koch Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he joined the Institute of Experimental Immunology at the University of Zürich in 1997 as a recipient of the postdoctoral fellowship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. In 2002, Prof. Ludewig accepted the position as head of the Institute of Immunobiology at the Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen in Eastern Switzerland.
He currently serves as a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Immunology and the European Journal of Immunology.