Members:
Christian A. Schmidt, MD (PI)
Piotr Grabarczyk, PhD (Senior Scientist)
Hannes Forkel (PhD student)
Elleny Binz (PhD student)
Anne Susemihl (PhD student)
Björn Lode (MD student)
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
