Based on seminal basic research from the last decades, new therapeutic options in cancer are continuously becoming available, improving survival and clinical outcome.
Infectious diseases are claiming millions of lives in spite of the availability of modern antimicrobial drugs. Vaccination has been successful against many viruses and bacteria. However, efficient vaccines are still lacking for many infectious agents; prominent examples are HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
These intracellular infections pose a particular challenge to the immune system, as the microbes hide inside our cells to become inaccessible to antibodies. NK cells can identify infected cells and then kill them to terminate replication and spread of microbes. We aim to identify the mechanisms for NK cell recognition of infected cells, to help provide the grounds for innovative and more efficient antimicrobial drugs and vaccination strategies.