New funding period for Transregio Collaborative Research Centre on multiple sclerosis

Cell culture model of the blood-brain barrier. A human T-cell (bottom right, blue cell nucleus) loaded with the protein Granzyme K (green), looks for a suitable site to drill a channel through a blood vessel cell (blue cell nucleus top left, red cell margin) for migration. This process does not need inflammation and is part of immune surveillance in the healthy brain.
© AG Zarbock, AG Schwab

The German Research Foundation has approved a new funding period for the Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio "Initiating/Effector versus Regulatory Mechanisms in Multiple Sclerosis". Spokesperson for the network is Prof Heinz Wiendl, a neurologist at the University Hospital Münster. In addition to the University of Münster, the Universities of Mainz and Munich are involved in the project.

The Collaborative Research Centre focuses on investigating multiple sclerosis. In this autoimmune disease, immune cells attack the very organism they are supposed to protect: They migrate to the brain, where they cause chronic inflammation. In order to develop new therapeutic concepts, researchers in this project are working on unraveling the changes in the immune system that underlie the disease, the role of the blood-brain barrier and the effects of the immune system's attack on the central nervous system. They examine these processes in rodents and humans and often use innovative imaging techniques.