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Immune diseases such as allergies, chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases result from pathogenic immune responses that also occur in healthy individuals. Nevertheless, healthy responses control the pathogenic ones so that these do not lead to tissue damage. Moreover, even individuals who develop an allergy to one food or pollen, for example, are still able to maintain a state of tolerance towards myriads of other food antigens and pollens that they can tolerate.

The work carried out in our research group is aimed at understanding the way the immune system decides to respond in a pathogenic or conversely a healthy manner to innocuous allergens or self antigens. Consequently we aim to exploit the natural mechanisms of tolerant immune responses for the prevention and treatment of immune diseases. In this respect developing new therapeutic strategies for immunotherapy represents a major interest of our research group. We aim to translate the major advances that occurred over the last decades with regard to a better understanding of immune mechanisms into the development of novel immunotherapeuticals.

PhD Students:

Alick Stephens