연구단장 대행

연구지원본부 본부장 채순기

연구단 소개

면역 체계와 공생 세균간의 항상성 조절 기작 규명 및 연구

• - 공생 미생물군과 유래항원에 의해 이루어지는 면역 시스템의 발달과 항상성의 유지에 대한 새로운 기작을 규명
• - 자가 항원 및 무해 항원에 대한 면역적 관용을 조절하는 기작을 규명
• - 만성적 자가면역질환, 알레르기 질환 및 암 치료를 위해, 독창적이고 효율적인 면역 조절법 개발

주요 연구 활동

The immune system is essential to protect the host from invasion by pathogenic microbes and outgrowth of cancerous host cells. It is both powerful and versatile, capable of mobilizing a customized potent response to the vast array of pathogens and tumors. Because of its strength, the activated immune response is tightly regulated and is, upon elimination of the invaders, rapidly extinguished to prevent collateral tissue damage. The immune system thereafter “remembers”the invaders and is capable of mounting a stronger and quicker response to subsequent invasions by the same pathogen or cancer.Effective immunity requires a complex network of interactions between multiple types of cells. The primary lymphoid tissues generate immune cells, whose activation is initiated in the secondary lymphoid tissues.

Immune cells are also distributed throughout the non-lymphoid tissues and are particularly prominent in the mucosal tissues that are exposed to the environment. Here, these immune cells perform a highly specialized function by providing protection from environmental pathogens while maintaining operational tolerance to benign antigens and to the massive numbers of commensal microbes that co-exist peacefully with the host. While many key mechanisms that regulate the immune system have been deciphered, much more remain yet to be discovered. The goal of AIM is to discover several of these unknown fundamental mechanisms. Particular focus will be placed on elucidating the mechanisms by which various populations of lymphocytes develop and function, how these cells are activated and regulated in order to protect the host without causing collateral tissue damage, and how these cells co-exist peacefully with the commensal microbes while conferring protective immunity against pathogenic microbes. These discoveries should lead reveal novel approaches to enhance immunity against pathogens and cancer and to prevent or ameliorate chronic immune inflammatory disease, such as autoimmunity, allergies, atherosclerosis and metabolic diseases.