GRK 1441:  Regulation of the Allergic Response in Lung and Skin

• Subject Area: Medicine
• Term: from 2006 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 20641893

The prevalence of allergic diseases is continuously increasing in western industrial countries as epidemiologic studies have clearly shown in the last years. Allergic diseases often display a severe, chronic course and many result in consequences, which deeply impairs the patients' quality of life. The research on allergic diseases has to be interdisciplinary since different peripheral organs (particularly of the respiratory tract and the skin) are involved with organ-specific phenotypes. At the Hannover Medical School (MHH) scientific projects focussing on allergic inflammation in lung and skin have been successfully performed by a number of groups and been funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft including projects of Collaborative Research Centres (particulary in the Collaborative Research Centres 566 and 587) for many years. The initiation of this Research Training Group on allergic inflammation was proposed because of the existing previous work in this field and an excellent infrastructure. The Research Training Group shall supplement other existing programmes for the education of young scientist in an ideal way. Moreover, it can be integrated into the Hannover Biomedical Research School (HBRS), which coordinates programmes for the education of young scientists (international MD/PhD programmes, other Research Training Groups, structured education of graduate students), which is now part of the excellence programme of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. A specific study programme on allergic inflammation is offered in English by members of the Research Training Group, which will be open to fellows of other graduate and postgraduate programmes of the HBRS.
The scientific projects shall elucidate inflammatory mechanism in allergic reactions in peripheral organs. The focus of these projects lies on questions of the regulation, modulation of peripheral cellular tissue reactions, which are initiated by local infiltrating T-cells, antigen-presenting-cells (APC) or mast cells and by the interaction of activated leukocytes with organ resident cells (e.g. epithelial cells).

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
• Participating Institution: Fraunhofer-Institut für Toxikologie und Experimentelle Medizin (ITEM)
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Thomas Werfel
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Georg Behrens; Professor Dr. Armin Braun; Professorin Dr. Anna-Maria Dittrich; Professorin Dr. Gesine Hansen; Professor Dr. Jens Hohlfeld; Professor Dr. Michael Kabesch; Professor Dr. Roland Seifert; Professor Dr. Tim Dominik Sparwasser; Dr. Michael Stephan; Professor Dr. Tobias Welte (†); Professorin Dr. Miriam Wittmann