Research Project

The broad, long term goal of our group – gathering clinician-scientists (rheumatologists, nephrologists and pediatric hema tologists), basic/translational scientists (immunologists, geneticists, virologists), engineers (bioinformaticians, molecular biologists), post-docs, graduate students and technicians – is to study the diversity of the immune system and the immune response. Using modern techniques of molecular and cell biology, highly curated patient cohorts and relevant animal models we aim in particular at tackling important biomedical questions with regards to immunogenetics/histocompatibility and rheumatology.

In the field of immunogenetics/histocompatibility, we are interested in high-throughput genomics of immune/inflammatory diseases and transplantation. This work is performed in the framework of the Laboratory of Excellence (LabEx) TRANSPLANTEX headed by Seiamak Bahram and gathering more than 200 staff across the country. In the field of autoimmunity, we are applying multi-omics strategies to decipher complex and multifactorial diseases such as systemic sclerosis or primary Sjögren’s disease. Finally, whenever possible results are transposed to concrete medical applications, mostly in the field of diagnostics.

The team is also a leading member of two further collaborative initiatives including:

-The Hospital-University Federation (FHU) OMICARE (omics+care) focused on multi-omics based stratification of autoimmune and autoinflammatory disease patients

-The PACIFIC Institute dedicated to personalized medicine of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases: http://www.ihu-pacific.eu/

Collaborations

Our group has established multiple collaborations with national and international scientists. Here are a few examples of main collaborators: Dr. Bertrand Isidor (Hospital of Nantes, France), Prof. Gérard Socié (Hospital St. Louis, Paris, France), Prof. Hidetoshi INOKO (Tokai University, Japan), Prof. Masao OTA (Shinshu University, Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan), Prof. Claudia Lengerke (Universityof Basel, Basel, Switzerland), Prof. Akiko Shimamura (Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, USA), Prof. Caner Süsal (Institute of Immunology, Heidelberg, Germany), Prof. Robert Zeiser (University Hospital Freiburg, Germany), Prof. Fai Ng (Newcastle University, UK),…

Funding

  • Cancéropole Grand-Est,
  • Feder dont Interreg V
  • Eurométropole de Strasbourg
  • Ministère de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche
  • Investissements d’avenir
  • Conseil général du Bas-Rhin
  • Région Grand Est
  • Inserm
  • Université de Strasbourg
  • MSD Avenir
  • IUF
  • ANR
  • ERC Advanced Grant.