Peña Mosca, Maria Josefina
Name: María Josefina Peña Mosca
PI: Prof. Dr. Andreas Beilhack
Institute: Department of Medicine II, Center for Experimental Molecular Medicine (ZEMM)
Project: The intestinal mucosa, with an area of around 300 m2, is a major interface between an organism and its environment and is constantly facing a large variety of antigens, derived from dietary proteins or commensal bacteria. Therefore, the intestinal immune system must maintain tolerance to self-antigens and non-pathogenic non-self-antigens, while remaining able to mount an immune response against pathogens. The gastro-intestinal tract also serves as major target in acute graft-versus-host disease. The overall goal of this project is to explore the regulation of alloreactive T cell migration into the intestinal Lamina propria after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation and to address whether defined T cell subsets including regulatory T cells use similar or different mechanisms to enter the intestinal mucosa in defined immunological scenarios.
