Research

Future projects and goals

We will investigate how the endogenous capacity of blood stem cells to produce myeloid cells like macrophages can be enhanced for clinical applications where insufficient production of these cells leads to immune depression and potentially fatal infections.

We want to understand what controls how many times a cell can divide and how this ability can be extended without turning the cell into a tumour cell. We are translating such findings from mouse models to extend the life span and amplify human macrophages.

We are developing gene-editing capacities in macrophages that will enable us to tailor macrophage cellular therapies to specific needs in regenerative medicine and for the modulation of the immune system.

We believe that the understanding and manipulation of macrophages will be instrumental to slow, halt or even revert successive degeneration occurring with advanced age in organs like the heart, the brain and the lung by re-activating juvenile regeneration mechanisms.