Basic and translational research
Type I allergies, which comprise a wide range of IgE-mediated disorders such as hay fever, asthma, atopic dermatitis, affect more than 20% of the population and therefore represents a major health problem.
The primary interest of our group is the development of new tools for allergy diagnosis and for safer and more efficient allergen-specific immunotherapy. Presently, we are working on birch pollen and associated food allergies, allergic reactions to mountain and Japanese cedar and ragweed and mugwort pollen allergies.
To generate improved tools for allergy diagnosis and therapy, our ongoing projects involve:
- Identification of natural allergens
- Generation of low IgE binding hypoallergenic molecules in bacterial, yeast and plant expression systems
- Protein purification
- Physicochemical protein characterization (analysis of protein folding and aggregation, mass spectrometry)
- Immunologic characterization of recombinant proteins in vitro
- Antigen uptake and processing
- Analysis of allergenic molecules in pre-clinical models
