Séminaire CIRI (28.01.2025): Pr. Klaus EYER

Pr. Klaus EYER, Aarhus University, Denmark, “ Exploring immunity on the functional level – stories of effectors measured on the single-cell level ”

Abstract: The immune system's complexity lies not only in its diverse cell types but also in the distinct and dynamic functions performed by individual cells, and a deep exploration of how individual cells function and interact to drive complex immune responses can provide new insights into immunity. Traditional bulk analyses often obscure the heterogeneity of immune responses, whereas single-cell technologies now enable precise measurement of effector functions such as cytokine production and antibody secretion. These methods have revealed the multifunctionality of immune cells, where individual cells can perform multiple tasks simultaneously or sequentially. Exploring effector functions at the single-cell level provides critical insights into immune regulation, disease mechanisms, and potential therapeutic strategies, offering a deeper understanding of immunity.
This talk will highlight the technologies that we have developed to do so, and moreover, how a detailed picture of humoral and adaptive immunity can provide novel insights into the responses following vaccination and autoimmune disease. Lastly, these measures can be exploited to screen for rare, functional, and (cross-)specific antibodies. Particularly, assaying antibody specificity on the individual antibody level might prove interesting for finding therapeutic candidates against pathogens.