Biochemical and mechanistical elucidation of inflammasomes – the key players of chronic inflammation

• Applicant: Dr. Liudmila Andreeva
• Subject Area: Structural Biology ; Biochemistry
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 520465503

Inflammation is an early response to various infections and damage initiated by immune system for pathogen clearance and tissue repair. One of the molecular machineries responsible for inflammation are inflammasomes multiprotein molecular machineries, which trigger maturation and secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and inflammatory cell death. However, inflammasomes must be tightly regulated. Indeed, an aberrant inflammasome activation has been linked to such severe diseases as cancer, neurodegeneration, various metabolic disorders and autoimmune diseases. Thus, understanding of molecular mechanisms of inflammasomes is essential for developing novel treatments of these severe conditions. However, despite their clinical importance, only few inflammasomes are well characterized mechanistically. Therefore, this work will be focused on the unknown aspects of inflammasome mechanics and will address inflammasome rearrangements in health and disease using various structural, biochemical and cell-based methods. Our results will not only answer important biological questions but will also support structure-based discovery of novel inflammasome modulators and their translational application.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups