Professor Bart Lambrecht, Professor of Pulmonary diseases, Head of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation and Mocusal Immunology, University Hospital Ghent, Belgium, presents this lecture on: “Targeting dendritic cells to better understand and treat allergic asthma.”
A tea/coffee reception will precede the lecture at 17.00 and a drinks reception will follow the lecture, both in the Refectory.
Attendance is free but with registration in advance with Emma Watson.
Further information
Abstract: Allergic asthma is characterized by airway wall infiltration with eosinophils, mast cells and Th2 cells that lead to goblet cell hyperplasia, bronchial hyperreactivity and airway wall remodelling. The ways in which Th2 cells get activated during sensitization and during recall responses have been intensively studied. Antigen-presenting dendritic cells are crucial not only in the initiation of T cell responses, but also for their maintenance. Targeting dendritic cells (DCs) using genetic strategies in mice with acute allergic inflammation, as well as those with chronically remodelled airways illustrated that interfering with the function of DCs holds therapeutic perspectives. Therefore, we have recently extensively studied how DCs get activated in response to inhaled allergens. Exogenous danger signals like LPS are commonly found in allergens like house dust mites (HDM). Strikingly, airway DCs get activated in response to LPS in HDM, but do so indirectly, via signals derived from bronchial epitellial cells. We have also found that endogenous danger signals like ATP and uric acid control the activation of DCs in response to allergen challenge or in response to Th2 adjuvants, that are commonly used for inducing experimental asthma, like the Th2 adjuvant alum. On the contrary, there also exist endogenous anti-inflammatory signals, like prostaglandins, that suppress the function of DCs and dampen Th2 development and effector functions. Thus, a fine balance exists that sets the level of DC activation in vivo and could be exploited to the design of novel forms of anti-inflammatory therapies.
Biography: Bart N. Lambrecht obtained the MD/PhD degree at the University of Ghent, Belgium in 1993 and 1999. After obtaining the MD/PhD degree under the mentorship of Prof. Romain Pauwels, he moved to The Netherlands where he trained in Pulmonary Medicine. He became Professor of Pulmonary Medicine in 2005, holding a special chair in Immunopathology of the Lung at the pulmonary research program of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. After ten years in The Netherlands, he moved back to Belgium and was appointed Professor of Pulmonary Medicine at Ghent University, and is currenly heading a group of 20 scientists dealing with the immunopathology of asthma and immunotherapy of cancer.
He is the author of over 100 papers dealing with the use of mouse models to study the pathogenesis of asthma and cancer related immunosuppression. In recent years, he has received several awards, among which the Odysseus Grant of the Flemish government, The Inbev-Baillet Latour Prize for Clinical Research, The Pharmacia Allergy Research Foundation Award 2004, The NWO Vidi scholarship, The Schering Plough Respiratory 2000 Award, and the 1998 European Respiratory Society Annual Allergy and Immunology award. Among academic activities, he is a Young Academy member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), advisory editor of The Journal of Experimental Medicine and associate editor of Mucosal Immunology.
The interest of his research group is on the role of antigen presenting dendritic cells in the initiation of the pulmonary immune response that ultimately leads to sensitization to antigens, applied to allergic disease, respiratory viruses and cancer immunotherapy.