Each year, Eucor – The European Campus funds several joint projects that involve at least two of its five member universities. In the Seed Money call for 2024, two cross-border projects co-led by CIBSS members Prof. Dr. Olaf Groß and Prof. Dr. Marta Rizzi were selected. Both projects are joint projects together with researchers from Strasbourg, strengthening the international bounds between the Universities of Strasbourg/France and Freiburg/Germany.
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CIBSS members Olaf Groß and Marta Rizzi receive Eucor Seed Money
The two cross-border projects will strengthen cooperation between Strasbourg and Freiburg
The two projects are among eight that receive funding in the 7th Seed Money call. They were selected by the Assembly of the university alliance based on recommendations by experts from the member universities. The universities provide an annual budget of 300,000 € in order to promote the networking of scientists.
Molecular biologist Groß will join forces with medical scientist Prof. Dr. Roméo Ricci from Strasbourg to investigate molecular mechanisms that lead to activation of the NLRP3, an important control point of the innate immune system. Immunologist Rizzi, together with pharmacologist Dr. Vincent Gies from Strasbourg, will research the role of B-cells in the development of autoimmune diseases.
The projects each are co-led by one researcher from Freiburg/Germany and one researcher from Strasbourg/France. Collage: Michal Rössler/CIBSS
Interrogating NLRP3 inflammasome activation mechanisms
Project. lead by Olaf Groß and Roméo Ricci
Inflammasomes are intracellular sensors of pathogens and danger signals. The NLRP3 inflammasome is involved in host defence against cancer and infection, but is also a major instigator of pathological inflammation in several diseases. Understanding its elusive mechanism of activation is one of the biggest open questions in the field of immunology and is a crucial step towards therapeutic targeting of NLRP3. Using different approaches, both groups involved in this project have individually made substantial contributions towards this goal and each received prestigious ERC funding related to inflammasome research (StG and PoC grants to Groß and CoG funding to Ricci). Here, we propose to take first steps towards joining forces between our groups in Freiburg and Strasbourg and combine our complementary expertise and unique methods to specifically tackle the problem of NLRP3 activation mechanisms. Novel pharmacologic NLRP3 activators developed in Freiburg will be jointly investigated in Strasbourg to elucidate their mode of action including their impact on intracellular NLRP3 trafficking. We anticipate that the Seed Money project will deliver key new insight into the activation of NLRP3, will establish a sustainable collaboration between our groups that could lead to new joint projects and funding applications, and will increase the international visibility of the European Campus partners in the inflammasome field.
B-TOL
Project lead by Marta Rizzi and Vincent Gies
Tolerance to self-antigen is necessary to prevent autoimmunity. In healthy individuals, self-reactive B cells are counter-selected or regulated. However, in some individuals, failure in B cell tolerance checkpoints result in the formation of autoantibodies and the potential development of autoimmune diseases. These autoantibodies can be pathogenic with devastating consequences in autoimmune disease such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, or antiphospholipid syndrome. Understanding origin of self-reactivity, and more precisely autoreactive B cells, has therapeutic relevance. Indeed, depletion of B cells is often beneficial, but paradoxically, B cell targeting therapies are not always effective, as different type of B cells are maintaining the diseases: each autoimmune disease may have its own “unique B cell history”. The general aim of this project is to develop tools for the precise characterization of autoreactive B cells in multiple B-cell mediated autoimmune disease.
This study will develop methods and tools, and build a reference network for the study of autoreactive B cells in the Upper Rhine region and understand the role of autoreactive B cells in autoantibody mediated diseases and potentially address gaps in their management.
About Eucor
Eucor – The European Campus is a trinational alliance of five universities in the Upper Rhine, a border region between Germany, France and Switzerland. Its members are the universities of Basel, Freiburg, Haute-Alsace, Strasbourg, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).