Søren Degn is to explore unexpected link between two types of immune cells
Associate professor Søren Egedal Degn from Department of Biomedicine will investigate a novel link between two cell types that may play an important role across a range of diseases such as cancer and inflammatory skin disorders. The LEO Foundation has granted more than DKK 3 million to the project.
Søren Degn and his team have discovered a new and unexpected link between a type of immune cells that normally produce antibodies (B cells) and a type of immune cells that are responsible for eliminating the body’s own cells when they are infected or become cancerous (CD8+ T cells).
Their preliminary findings indicate that this link may play an important role when the immune system is erroneously activated, when an infection cannot be cleared, or when a cancer is established. The link occurs in the spleen, but it is still unknown which exact signals are responsible for the communication between these two cell types, and whether it occurs directly or via a third-party messenger.
Søren Degn is about to investigate this further with a Serendipity grant of DKK 3.3 million from the LEO Foundation. The intention is to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms behind this novel link as this may enable new therapeutic strategies in the future across a range of diseases such as inflammatory skin disorders, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.
This coverage is based on press material from the LEO Foundation
Contact
Associate professor Søren Egedal Degn
Aarhus University, Department of Biomedicine
Mobile phone: (+45) 22 14 17 03
Email: sdegn@biomed.au.dk