News
Interdisciplinary project to dissect inflammatory memory in patients with asthma and chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps:
We continue our mission to understand how chronic type 2 inflammation is maintained and how it can be overcome through translational work with our clinical colleagues at the CHUV.
We are very grateful to our faculty for supporting these efforts and for fostering collaboration with the teams of Dr. Antoine Reinhard (ENT service, CHUV) and Prof. Yannick Muller (Allergy service, CHUV).
Read the corresponding interview (in french):
FBM transition grant recipients 2025:
FBM Transition grant for Sina Bohnacker
Congratulations to Sina Bohnacker for being selected as one of the five young researchers awarded a Transition Grant from our faculty to develop their independent research projects! Sina will build on her expertise in type 2 immunity and prostanoids to discover new mechanisms of anti-cancer immunity in a new collaboration with the team of Dr. Denarda Dangaj at the Department of Fundamental Oncology.
Two awards for our team: Faculty award for Sina Bohnacker & Georges Köhler prize for Julia
Esser-von Bieren
Postdoc Sina Bohnacker (front, middle) has been awarded a Faculty Award by the UNIL Faculty of Biology and Medicine for her thesis "From viruses to worms - regulation of macrophage activation in infectious disease."
Our PI, Julia Esser-von Bieren has received the Georges-Köhler-Prize from the German Society for Immunology (DGfI) for her groundbreaking work related to type 2 immune responses.
https://www.unil.ch/news/1756125818943
https://dgfi.org/ausgezeichnet-dgfi-early-and-advanced-career-prizes-2025/
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created with Biorender
New study on ApoE deficiency in N-ERD in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology
Research led by former PhD student and postdoc Antonie Lechner (now UZH) identifies apolipoprotein E (ApoE) as an important protective factor in chronic type 2 inflammatory diseases: Patients with NSAID-exacerbated respiratory disease (N-ERD) lack ApoE production by macrophages, resulting in heightened inflammatory activation and susceptibility to ferroptosis, a form of cell death driven by lipid peroxidation:
credits: A. Mastin/Science Immunology
Our favourite worms on the cover!
Research by our postdoc Sina Bohnacker shows that the helminth parasite Heligmosomoides polygyrus bakeri (Hpb) uses an enzyme called glutamate dehydrogenase to evade host type 2 immunity: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.adl1467
Spotlight in Trends in Parasitology
Read this excellent spotlight by Prof. Bart Everts on our recent Science Immunology publication:
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​https://www.cell.com/trends/parasitology/fulltext/S1471-4922(25)00034-0
Kurzgesagt movie about allergies & worms
Fun to watch - our new favourite kurzgesagt movie
highlights the importance and origins of type 2 immunity
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Events & Activities
Welcome to Lausanne!
The 2025 annual congress of the Swiss Society for Allergology and Immunology is taking place in beautiful Lausanne this year - looking forward to two days of cutting-edge research
Fun during Team Sledging in Les Diablerets
Team Hike in Ovronnaz
Research
Understanding and targeting type 2 immunity
Please see our key publications
Our ongoing projects aim to understand how type 2 immune responses become chronic and how we can re-set pathological type 2 immunity.
Using a translational approach we aim to uncover the mechanisms underlying chronic type 2 inflammation and uncover new immune regulators produced by helminth parasites. Thus, we hope to contribute to a better understanding and ultimately the improved management of diseases such as asthma, allergy and nasal polyposis.
We are a diverse team with expertise in and passion for
immunology, biochemistry and parasitology.
