This participant is located at the Institute of Experimental Immunology, which acts as a platform for immunological research for scientists of all disciplines of the University Clinic of Bonn. The institute was founded in 2001 and has since made a strong impact on the research fields of antigen presentation and local immune regulation, in particular in the kidney. It was centrally involved in establishing two DFG collaborative research centres (SFBs 704, SFB TR57), and the Excellence Cluster ImmunoSensation Bonn has developed into one of the top locations of immunological research in Europe as evident from numerous publications in top journals. It is also the base of an excellence training course for students in molecular biomedicine and recently established a joint graduate training program with Melbourne, Australia (Bo&Merang). The expertise and resources will be shared with the consortium.

Main tasks attributed in the project

Partner UKB is participating in WP 04 and 05.

Main personnel involved in the project

Dr. med. Christian Kurts, the local PI at UKB, has been trained in internal medicine and clinical nephrology in Hannover and Aachen, Germany, in experimental immunology at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia, and at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, San Diego, California. He currently is Director of Institute of Experimental Immunology and heads a research group investigating questions in antigen presentation, immune tolerance/autoimmunity and local immune regulation in the kidney. He was the first to describe the mechanisms of cross-presentation and cross-tolerance, which are now immunological textbook knowledge. He has pioneered research on kidney dendritic cells, by describing detection and isolation techniques for these cells in mice and by demonstrating their role in glomerular kidney disease. He is a member of the editorial boards of The European Journal of Immunology, The Journal of Immunology, J Am Soc Nephrol and Kidney International, and received several awards including the 1999 Sir Hans Krebs Award, a Heisenberg fellowship of the DFG, the Hans-U.-Zollinger-Award of the German Society for Nephrology and the 2012 Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Prize of the DFG.