RareBoost Seminar by Prof. Philippe Krebs: Keep Calm: The Mucosal Barrier at the Interface of Peace and War
Prof. Krebs will deliver the Rareboost Seminar on September 29th at 11 am at the IBG Aziz Sancar Auditorium. The title of the seminar is “Keep Calm: The Mucosal Barrier at the Interface of Peace and War”.
Prof. Krebs received his MSc degree in Biochemistry at the University of Fribourg (2001), and worked on his PhD thesis at the Institute of Experimental Immunology at the University Hospital of Zurich and at the Institute of Immunobiology at the Cantonal Hospital of St-Gallen. After receiving his PhD from the ETHZ (2005), he went for a postdoctoral training to The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California. Since October 2011, he is independent research group leader at the Institute of Pathology of the University of Bern. His research interests lie in the role of inflammation for tumorigenesis as well as the cross-talk of innate and adaptive immunity in sterile and infectious conditions.
Summary of the Seminar
Epithelial tissues serve as barriers that protect the body from external challenges. Disruption of the epithelial layer triggers the recruitment of immune cells, a process that must be tightly regulated to prevent excessive inflammation and support tissue repair. Persistent epithelial damage or immune dysregulation can lead to chronic inflammation, promoting immunopathology or tumorigenesis in mucosal tissues.
While current therapies primarily target established mucosal diseases, the mechanisms that initiate these disorders remain poorly understood. My laboratory uses mouse models and patient-derived samples to investigate how communication between epithelial cells and the immune system contributes to disease onset. Our goal is to uncover how early disruptions in this interplay drive mucosal pathology and to identify mechanisms that could be targeted to restore tissue homeostasis.
In this seminar, I will present mainly unpublished findings on the role of a tissue-secreted alarmin in driving immunopathology in chronic inflammatory lung disease and colorectal cancer development. I will focus on how this alarmin shapes the interplay between epithelial or tumour cells and immune cells, and how these interactions contribute to disease progression.