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Cardiac Allograft Vasculopathy
Gene Polymorphisms as Risk Factors In transplanted hearts (also called ̒cardiac allograftsʼ) blood vessels may clog after transplantation. This is called vasculopathy and leads to rejection of the graft. Consequently, for long-time survival of transplanted hearts a strict control of the organ function is mandatory.Patients may have genetic predispositions for upcoming rejection. My work interrogated…
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Tendon
New data on gene expressions allow diagnosis It is often difficult to distinguish healthy from diseased tendons and to choose the right patient treatment. We aim to identify a pattern of gene markers that might allow such differentiation. To do so, we have isolated RNA from different tendons from more than 80 human patients and…
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How to obtain mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow?
In October 2023, scientists from the institute of Cell Biology and Biophysics, Leibniz University, from the institute of Micro Production Technology, Leibniz University, and from the institute of Experimental Infection Research, TWINCORE worked with Anika in our lab to isolate human mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow, see photo. For more information, also watch our…
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Dr. iur. Dr. rer. pol. Tade Matthias Spranger in NIFE
On August 25, 2022, Prof. Spranger gave a lecture on “The Enigma of Ethics Committees” for students of biochemistry and for employees of NIFE. He brought in many illustrative examples from his own experience. Afterwards, this topic which has become increasingly complex in recent years and therefore very burdensome for scientists, was discussed with great…
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Musculoskeletal System: The Intracellular Protein TAK1
Cell Signaling in Inflammation and Fibrosis TAK1 (transforming growth factor-activated kinase 1) is important for differentiation and regeneration as well as during infections and inflammatory responses. In an inflammatory model of arthritis, we investigated the hypothesis whether silencing of TAK1 would reduce the extent of inflammation and halt subsequent tissue destruction. Injection of lipoplexes with…
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Immune Cells
Optimization of cell cultures for implant assessment The development of novel biomaterials is challenging. Not only local interactions at the implantation site but also systemic effects must be considered. Predictive systems based on cell cultures are not yet available. We are working on such systems and currently focus on monocytes/macrophages as one important cell type…
