Sex-specific differences in immunity and infection: an integrative approach

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stefan Bonn
• Subject Area: Immunology ; Bioinformatics and Theoretical Biology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 429191104

A growing amount of evidence suggests that immune reaction to challenge is strongly influenced by the sex of the individual. We hypothesize that the observable sex bias in neurodegenerative disease onset, prevalence, and progression might be caused or exacerbated by sex-specific differences of brain immune cells. In this project, we will investigate sex-specific immunosenescence in the healthy brain and derive potential implications for the observed sex biases in neurodegeneration (objective 1). Another fundamental assumption of this project is that the integration of sex differences in immunology across data types and diseases should yield novel insights into sex-specific pathophysiology. It is our second aim (objectives 2 & 3) we will build a semantic integration platform for the interactive querying, visualization, and analysis of sex-specific immune differences across organs, disease, model organism, and treatment. This platform will enable researchers of the RU 5068 and the global research community to easily access and analyse data according to FAIR principles. The subsequent integrative analysis of this data will yield fundamental insights into common and distinct central sex-specific regulatory mechanisms of the immune system, providing insights into actionable molecules, pathways, and cell types (objective 4).

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5068: Sex differences in immunity