SIC welcomes BRIDGE - Translational Excellence Programme Fellow

SIC has been granted one of this year’s competitive Translational Excellence Programme Fellowships. The new BRIDGE fellow will study allergy as a potential cause of impaired immunity to bacterial infections in patients suffering from asthma and atopic dermatitis.

PhD Mandy Menzel and her mentor team, Professor and Acting Executive Director of SIC, Charlotte Menné Bonefeld, and Clinicial Professor at Bispebjerg and Herlev Hospital, Celeste Porsbjerg, have been awarded a BRIDGE fellowship. Mandy Menzel joins the T Cell Biology and Skin Inflammation Group at SIC.

Impact of immunotherapy on atopic diseases

Asthma affects more than 200 million people worldwide. The majority of cases is characterized by an atopic component, which is defined as a heightened immune response to one or more common aeroallergens or food allergens.

The fellowship will investigate research questions that stem from recent scientific observations that patients suffering from severe asthma are at a higher risk of being prescribed antibiotics for respiratory infections caused by bacteria. Moreover, it has been observed that these patients seem to benefit from allergic immunotherapy, leading to fewer infections and a reduced need for antibiotic treatment. But researchers do not yet know which mechanisms of immunotherapy lead to better response towards bacteria.

“We now want to unravel molecular and immunological mechanisms that link atopy to susceptibility to bacterial infection. The aim is that our findings can be used for patient stratification to identify patient groups particularly at risk of contracting infections and to identify molecular targets for novel treatment approaches for atopic diseases”, says BRIDGE fellow Mandy Menzel.

Translational network of skin and asthma specialists

The first manifestation of atopy is often atopic dermatitis which may then progress to food allergies, allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma – a process called ‘atopic march’. Studies have found that children with atopic dermatitis are more prone to develop atopic asthma and that likelihood of developing asthma increases with increasing eczema severity. These results identify the skin as an important route of allergen exposure and sensitisation that might contribute to the development of allergic asthma.

With expertise in asthma and immunology of the skin respectively, mentors Celeste Porsbjerg and Charlotte Menné Bonefeld look forward to collaborating in the programme.

“The clinical trial in the projects will be performed at the Respiratory Research unit at Bispebjerg Hospital which has extensive experience in mechanistic studies of asthma. SIC provides the best possible facilities for in vitro and molecular biology analyses and extensive knowledge on allergies and immunological responses in the skin. As such, we have built a very strong translational network for these studies”, says Charlotte Menné Bonefeld.

Parts of the study involving bronchial epithelial cell biology will be conducted in the lab of collaborator Professor Lena Uller at Lund University, Sweden.

BRIDGE – Translational Excellence Programme

The postdoctoral BRIDGE fellowships in translational medicine are offered to selected researchers working on translational research projects at the University of Copenhagen. Fellows apply new discoveries and technologies from biomedical research to the clinical environment or to the life science industry, thus bridging the gaps between research and medical treatment.

11 fellowships have been awarded in 2020. The fellowships are funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Read more about BRIDGE