Members:
Christian A. Schmidt, MD (PI)
Piotr Grabarczyk, PhD (Senior Scientist)
Maren Depke, PhD (PostDoc)
Hannes Forkel (PhD student)
Elleny Binz (PhD student)
Anne Susemihl (PhD student)
Björn Lode (MD student)
Diana Krüger (TA)
Research focus:
Our research focuses on BCL11B, a transcription factor involved in thymopoiesis as well as T lymphocyte and NK cell development and their characteristics. Recently, we have shown that BCL11B-depleted and IL-15-stimulated CD8+ T cells gained features of innate cells. These cells of novel type, named induced innate CD8+ T (iiT8) cells, exhibit a repertoire of multiple innate receptors on their surface. When subjected to killing assays, their cytotoxicity exceeded killing activity of control cells against leukemic cells and neuroblastoma spheroids in an antibody-independent and -dependent manner (AICC and ADCC). Therefore, iiT8 cells are assumed to carry an interesting therapeutic potential in adoptive cell transfer, CAR therapy or therapeutic antibody applications.
Key techniques:
• modification of primary cells
• retroviral genetic modification for knock-down of genes
• targeted gene knock-out by CRISPR-Cas9 RNP
• siRNA-mediated expression modulation and vectorbased overexpression
• flow cytometric characterization of manipulated (T-) cells
• functional readout by in vitro killing assays
• in vivo models of human tumor in immunodeficient mice
