Cluster of Excellence SynthImmune

The human immune system provides powerful protection against many diseases but fails to prevent lethal progress of some infections and types of cancer. Protective immunity requires cells to excel in recognizing target structures and carrying out immune functions, with individual immune cell clones able to form a “superior” immunity. The SynthImmune Cluster of Excellence – Engineering Immune Function with Synthetic Biology – aspires to decode the mechanisms of this elite immune function, using this knowledge to reconstruct them from synthetic and molecular building-blocks and develop prototypes of new therapies.

With this new bottom-up process in the research field of synthetic immunology, complex immune functions are to be achieved from synthetic molecular building blocks, and no longer by modifying existing cells or molecules as in the past. Using computer-supported modeling, the researchers in the cluster will identify essential functions of immune cells and their specific molecular signatures. This knowledge will be used to construct functional elite immunity modules from minimal components, generated through synthetic biology, nanotechnology and protein design. Building on this bottom-up approach, the aim is to conceptualize a new class of synthetic immunotherapies that overcomes the critical limitations of top-down engineering of patient-derived immune cells.

Spokespersons

• Prof. Dr Oliver Fackler (Medical Faculty Heidelberg)
• Prof. Dr Kerstin Göpfrich (Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University)
• Prof. Dr Michael Platten (Medical Faculty Mannheim)