An aberrant immune tolerance towards exogenous or endogenous antigens can be observed in several mast cell-mediated diseases, such as, allergies, anaphylaxis, or chronic urticaria. Our main goal is to understand the immunological mechanisms that lead to breakage, development, or maintenance of immune tolerance in these diseases. We especially focus on the impact of UV light exposure on mast cell reactivity, immune tolerance, and clinical disease outcome. The projects in this research theme comprise the establishment and characterization of novel in vivo disease models to study different aspects of immune tolerance, as well as, immunological monitoring of patients undergoing therapy.
I did my undergraduate studies in Molecular Biology (Bachelor) and Biochemistry and molecular Biomedicine (Master) at the University of Graz, Austria. After that, I studied the immunological response mechanisms towards a bacterial allergen in a murine model of allergic asthma at Ghent University, Belgium, where I obtained my PhD in Health Sciences in 2018. From 2018 to 2020, I worked as a postdoc in Prof. Gunnar Nilsson’s research group at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, investigating novel biomarkers for anaphylaxis in mastocytosis. In December 2020, I joined Prof. Wolf’s group as a postdoc, studying the immune tolerance in mast cell diseases
