Immune tolerance and transplantation
Foxp3 cells (red) developing in the thymus of a mouse
Selective induction of immune tolerance, without concomitant global immunosuppression, is often described as the holy grail of immunotherapy. Especially when patients have already developed an autoaggressive response, treatment that can reduce or prevent this are urgently needed for autoimmunity and graft versus host disease following bone marrow transplantation. Another aspect of bone marrow transplantation is controlling viral infections that develop in immunocompromised individuals as their immune system slowly returns to normal. Research in this group focuses on these goals, at both the basic level and in clinical trials of novel therapies.