News
Life’s simple 7 and incident dementia risk
Genetic downregulation of IL-6 signaling leads to a favourable cardiometabolic profile
March 2021 – Drugs targeting IL6 signaling have been approved for autoimmune diseases but the repurposing potential for other indications remains unknown. ISD researchers developed a genetic score predicting IL6 signaling activity over lifetime. In a phenome-wide association study they found genetically downregulated IL6 signaling to be associated with a favourable cardiometabolic profile including a lower risk of coronary artery disease and diabetes, and an increase in HDL cholesterol levels. Their results support repurposing of IL6R blockade as a strategy for lowering vascular risk...
AIM2-inflammasome signaling cascade causes post-stroke immunosuppression and secondary infections
First International Stroke-Immunology Conference | Online
White matter aging drives microglial diversity
Patient-centered prediction of tau spreading in Alzheimer’s
November 2020 | The spreading of tau pathology throughout the brain is the major driver of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease. ISD researchers developed a new functional connectivity-based prediction model for the forecasting of future tau PET spreading patterns in Alzheimer’s disease patients. This patient-centered prediction model provides a precision-medicine tool for predicting disease progression and defining a patient-tailored outcome measure to boost power in clinical trials targeting tau pathology...
Complicated Carotid Artery Plaques as a Cause of Cryptogenic Stroke
November 2020 | In up to 30% of patients the aetiology of stroke remains unknown. Applying high-resolution contrast-enhanced carotid MRI to patients with acute ischemic stroke ISD investigators identified nonstenosing complicated carotid artery plaques (cCAP) as an underrecognized cause of stroke. The most frequent feature of ipsilateral cCAP was intraplaque haemorrhage (89%), which can be reliably detected by conventional MRI sequences. Whether integrating carotid MRI into the diagnostic workflow would add clinical decision-making remains to be explored...
Neuropilin-1 opens the door to SARS-CoV-2 cell entry and infectivity
November 2020 | An international research team, coordinated by Mikael Simons (DZNE) with participation of the Gokce Lab identified neuropilin-1 as a factor that facilitates SARS-CoV-2 entry into cells including of the central nervous system. The study is now published in “Science”.
Metabolic signature differentiates ischemic stroke from stroke mimics
August 2020 | Early discrimination of patients with ischemic stroke (IS) from stroke mimics (SM) is important to allocate treatments, but poses a diagnostic challenge. Applying untargeted metabolomics to serum samples from > 800 patients with stroke-like symptoms, ISD investigators identified a signature of circulating metabolites that differentiates IS from SM with higher accuracy than multimodal cranial computed tomography upon hospital admission...
Visualization of biocompatible nanoparticles
July 2020 | Biocompatible nanoparticles have huge therapeutic potential, but could so far not be visualized. In a collaboration with investigators from Strasbourg, Igor Khalin (Plesnila Lab) now demonstrates that specifically designed ultra-bright nanoparticles can be traced in vivo by 2-photon microscopy. This technological breakthrough greatly improves our understanding how to target therapeutic compounds to the CNS...
Rolf-Becker Prize 2020 awarded to ISD scientist
July 2020 | Ali Erturk was awarded with the "Rolf-Becker"-Prize for one of the best scientific outputs in 2019/2020 by the Medical Faculty of LMU Munich. He received this prestigious award for his work on Deep Learning revealing therapeutic antibody targeting in the entire body published in CELL...
HDAC9 – from GWAS discovery to mechanisms and therapeutic targeting
June 2020 | Drug targets with support from human genetics have a higher probability of reaching phase III clinical trials and regulatory approval. Following their GWAS-based discovery of HDAC9 as a major risk locus for human atherosclerosis, ISD investigators identified a detailed mechanism linking HDAC9 to vascular inflammation. They further demonstrate that therapeutic inhibition of this HDAC9-dependent pathway confers plaque stability on top of atheroprotection …
ISD Research Retreat
July 2019 July 10th and 11th ISD research teams met for the yearly scientific retreat to present their projects and discuss the science. At the heart of this meeting were presentations from all Ph.D. students, including an evning poster session. The last year brought about important achievements both scientifically and with regard to expertise and infrastructure. The meeting further served as an opportunity to familiarize people with the medium- and long-term strategy of ISD...
