Project description

Electric signals regulate a variety of biological processes in our body. However, their interaction with the immune system remains largely unknown. Supported through a SNSF SPARK grant, we are pioneering the field of “electro-immunology”, exploring if and how inflammatory immune cells respond to electric stimulation (endogenous and exogenous) with the aim of inhibiting their infiltration in the central nervous system and open new therapeutic strategies. Leveraging the expertise available at the TKI, including in-house microfluidic models of the blood-brain-barrier (BBB), we are currently testing electric stimulation to modulate the extravasation of inflammatory T cells through the BBB, but we are interested in, and exploring also other contexts including basic electro-immune interaction mechanisms, and other disease models.