Bernhagen Lab News
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LMU CAS Fellow at the ISD
April 2023 – Thierry Calandra, Professor of Medicine (University of Lausanne), a renowned infectious disease and MIF expert, was appointed 2023 Visiting Fellow at the LMU Center for Advanced Studies (CAS). During his time in Munich, he will give lectures and pursue an immunology research line with a focus on dendritic cells and MIF hosted by the BernhagenLab at the ISD.
Yuan Tian and Markus Brandhofer successfully defended their doctoral theses
Sept-Oct 2022 – Congratulations to Yuan Tian and Markus Brandhofer, who successfully completed their doctoral theses entitled “Modulation of neuroinflammation and stroke outcome by the COP9 signalosome” and “Interactions between MIF-family proteins and the classical chemokine ligand/receptor network”, respectively. Yuan and Markus have been instrumental members of our team for several years and have made important contributions to several of our research lines and publications. Yuan wrote a full-size PhD script (“monography”), while Markus pursued the prestigious Dr. rer. nat. thesis line and concluded with a cumulative thesis based on three first/co-first authorship publications, accompanied by several flanking co-authorships. Congratulations again to both of you on your degree! We are happy that Markus will stay with us as part of our BioM m4 team SELECKREM, while Yuan has successful acquired a position abroad and is embarking on a postdoctoral scientist track in the UK as a next step in her career. We wish both of them a great start into their new positions.
CRC1123 “Atherosclerosis” approved for another 4 years
Jun 2022 – CRC1123 “Atherosclerosis” approved for another 4 years: The Collaborative Research Center CRC1123 “Atherosclerosis - Mechanisms and Networks of Novel Therapeutic Targets” (Speaker: Christian Weber, IPEK, LMU) was awarded a third funding period from the DFG for the years 2022-2026. The cluster encompasses 16 projects, 3 central projects, and a graduate school with a total funding volume of 14.5 mio. €. The ISD scientists Yaw Asare, Jürgen Bernhagen, Martin Dichgans, and Arthur Liesz contribute to 4 projects within the center: A2 (von Hundelshausen/Bernhagen), A3 (Bernhagen/Kapurniotu), B3 (Asare, Dichgans), B11 (Liesz/Sager). J. Bernhagen also is the Vice-Spokesperson of CRC1123. It is the aim of the multidisciplinary basic and clinical research projects in CRC1123 to elucidate the mechanisms and molecular networks driving atherosclerosis and to further the identification of potential therapeutic target candidates. The projects A2 and A3, in which the BernhagenLab is involved, address the roles of chemokines and their receptors in atherosclerosis and seek to identify novel therapeutic target candidates. In project A2, the BernhagenLab supports Philipp von Hundelshausen (IPEK, LMU) in efforts to study “Interactions of chemokines with heterologous effectors in atherosclerosis”. In A3, the BernhagenLab teams up with the peptide biochemistry lab of Aphrodite Kapurniotu at the TUM School of Life Sciences to explore “Differential mechanisms of MIF proteins in atherosclerosis and selective peptide-based strategies for intervention”.
Christine Krammer, PhD, successfully defended her thesis
Nov 2021 – We are happy to share the good news that Christine Krammer successfully completed her PhD Thesis entitled “MIF proteins and their receptors in atherogenesis: structure-activity relationships and novel cellular routes”. Christine has been an instrumental member of our team since 2017 and has made important contributions to several of our research lines. She successfully concluded an impressive cumulative thesis based on three first/co-first authorship publications, as well as a review article and several co-authorships. Congratulations again on your great thesis! Christine has decided to accept an attractive offer from industry and we wish her good luck, a successful career, and a good start at her new position at Eurofins.
Conference awards to Chunfang Zan and Markus Brandhofer
Oct 2021 – Chunfang Zan, PhD student in the BernhagenLab, won the Young Investigator Award at last week’s 9th Cardiac Regeneration and Vascular Biology Conference in San Servolo. At the same conference, Markus Brandhofer, a close to defense PhD student as well, was one of the four winners of a poster prize. The meeting was the first in-person conference for us in more than one-and-a-half years of COVID-19-related restrictions. The conference was co-organized by TUM-MRI (Christian Kupatt), the IRTG1123 graduate school of SFB1123 (Sabine Steffens, Christian Weber), and the DFG/ANR MIF-cross-kingdom consortium (Jürgen Bernhagen, Ralph Panstruga). It hosted more than 110 participants, including top-international speakers. Bishan Yang and Jelena Milic from our lab also presented posters at the conference.
m4 Award for project team of BernhagenLab together with KapurniotuLab at TUM
Oct 2021 – With their project idea SELECKREM “Preclinical development of peptide-based chemokine receptor mimetics as ligand-selective agents in atherosclerotic disease”, the team of Jürgen Bernhagen together with Aphrodite Kapurniotu and Christos Kontos (Division of Peptide Biochemistry, TUM), and Markus Brandhofer (ISD) is one of 5 winners of the 2021 pre-seed competition m4 award for innovative biomedical projects awarded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy. Despite significant medical advances, atherosclerotic diseases such as myocardial infarction and stroke remain the leading cause of death worldwide. A problem is the residual inflammatory risk in patients on lipid-lowering treatment and currently pursued anti-inflammatory approaches lack specificity and have side effects. With the m4 award, the team aims to develop chemokine receptor mimics as a new class of anti-inflammatory drug leads to selectively inhibit atherosclerosis-causing chemokines in cardiovascular diseases.
Bernhagen Lab contributes to studies on the role of MIF proteins in liver diseases
The papers comprehensively characterize the pathogenic role of MIF and its receptors in the entire cascade of liver pathologies from metabolic liver disease, to fibrosis/cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Specifically, MIF and its receptor CD74 were found to be causative in conditions such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), acute decompensation of cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Unraveled mechanisms encompass a shift in NKT cell populations, soluble CD74, and anti-apoptotic effects via CD74, respectively.
The work was performed as part of a joint project together with the lab of Marie Berres (Aachen University) and her team around Theresa Wirtz (a former member of the Bernhagen lab) in the context of Collaborative Research Center SFB-TRR57 “Organ Fibrosis” in collaboration with teams from Aachen University, Yale University, University of Bonn, and Frankfurt University.
The studies are published in the British Journal of Pharmacology, JHEP Reports, and Cells.
Sijia Wang, MD, successfully defended her thesis
May 2021 – Sijia Wang completed her MD Doctoral Thesis entitled “The role of MIF proteins in ischemic stroke”, a comprehensive and impressive MD thesis that actually is almost comparable to a full-size PhD thesis. Sijia successfully defended her doctoral thesis on 27 April 2021 and is currently preparing the corresponding original manuscript, on which she will be the first author. We are very proud of her big achievement and happy that Sijia was part of our laboratory for 4 years. We wish her best of success for her future carrier path in clinical neurology and biomedical science and hope that she will return to Munich soon.
New papers of the BernhagenLab reveal a role for the MIF/CXCR2 axis in neutrophil survival and identify novel cyclic peptides that inhibit MIF/CXCR2: implications for targeting strategies in inflammatory diseases
Nov 2020 / Feb 2021 – While the recruitment role of MIF and its chemokine receptors in atherosclerotic inflammation has been well described for monocytes, little is known about neutrophils, the first cells to arrive at inflammatory sites. Lisa Schindler, Leon Zwissler, and Christine Krammer together with our collaborators at the University of Otago in Christchurch, NZ, and the West-German Heart Center in Essen, now identify a role for the MIF/CXCR2 axis in neutrophil survival, a process governing the balance between the amplification of the inflammatory response and its resolution. In a second paper, Christine Krammer from our lab, together with collaborators from the KapurniotuLab at TUM and colleagues from the Institute for Cardiovascular Prevention (IPEK) of LMU, RWTH Aachen University, and Carolus/Moderna Therapeutics, report on novel, proteolytically stable, cyclic peptides that can block the MIF/CXCR2 axis. The studies are published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology and ChemBioChem.
Jelena Milic received a prestigious fellowship (“Promotionsstipendium”) from Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
July 2020 – Studienstiftung is Germany's oldest and most prestigious scholarship foundation. It awards fellowships to outstanding and particularly motivated doctoral students with distinguished personalities and well above-average degrees and scientifically excellent dissertation projects. Studienstiftung awards go to less than 0.5% of students pursuing their studies or doctoral projects in Germany. Jelena received the fellowship to pursue her doctoral thesis project on “The role of the COP9 signalosome in atherosclerosis”. Congratulations, Jelena, for receiving this fellowship award, best of success for your doctoral thesis, and enjoy the interactions with the other fellows at Studienstiftung’s wonderful academic program.
Young Investigator Award goes to Jelena Milic from Bernhagen Lab
March 2020 – Jelena Milic won the Gotthard Schettler Young Investigator Award at the Vascular Medicine and Atherosclerosis Conference (VMAC), held in Augsburg, 12-13th March, 2020. VMAC is organized by several leading German societies focusing on atherosclerosis and its sequelae, i.e. DGAF, DACH, and DGFF, as well as Working Group 41 (Atherosclerosis) of the German Cardiac Society (DGK). Jelena received the award for her lecture on “The Role of the COP9 Signalosome in Atherosclerosis” that she gave in the “Basic science – Young Investigator Award Session” of the VMAC conference. Congratulations, Jelena, for this very nice recognition of your research findings!
Two papers of the BernhagenLab shed light on the evolution and differential roles of MIF proteins in inflammation with implications for basic mechanisms but also cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases
Feb 2020 – The BernhagenLab recently discovered that plant MIF proteins surprisingly have MIF-like chemokine activity. Dzmitry is the first author on this paper and did a great job in highlighting the X-Kingdom activity of MIF proteins with implications for both basics research (e.g. evolution of the innate immune system, structure-activity relationships of MIF/receptor interactions) to unexpected translational opportunities (e.g. smart foods or immune modulation). The paper is a collaborators with researchers from Aachen University and the University of Groningen, NL, and was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry
Sinitski et al, JBC 2020; J Biol Chem. 2020 Jan 17;295(3):850-867.
and highlighted in Science Signaling
In collaboration with research from Zürich University and Yale University, we demonstrate a differential regulation of macrophage activation by the MIF cytokine superfamily members MIF and MIF-2 in adipose tissue during endotoxemia.
This study was just published in the FASEB Journal (Kim et al, FASEB J 2020; )
Group photo of the LMU/CSC conference and the incoming PhD candidates.
Oct 2019 – On the LMU/CSC day on Oct 7, 2019, the 2nd year CSC students had their midterm conference and the new CSC students celebrated their successful conclusion of the introductory course at LMU. Yuan Tian from the BernhagenLab presented a poster on her PhD project “The role of the COP9 signalosome in neuroinflammation” and Bishan Yang, now a new PhD candidate in the BernhagenLab, received her introductory course certificate.
9th International MIF Symposium
Nov 2018 – This year’s MIF Conference - The 9th International MIF Symposium (link) - was hosted by the Bernhagen lab at ISD/LMU Großhadern Campus from
Oct 3-6.A novel link between the chemokine MIF and B lymphocytes in atherosclerosis
Mar 2018 – The Bernhagen lab uncovered a previously unrecognized connection between the atherogenic chemokine-like cytokine MIF and B cell function in atherosclerosis. Previously already implicated in controlling monocyte and T cell recruitment in atherogenesis, the current study (Schmitz et al., FASEB J. 2018) using an atherogenic ApoE-/- mouse model suggests that MIF also controls pro-atherogenic B cell activities in this disease. Mif-deficient mice which are protected from lesion development have a B cell development defect and exhibit atheroprotective natural IgM-containing antibody profile. The mechanism of generation of these anti-oxidized LDL antibodies needs to be explored in future work, the current study also supports recent evidence on a critical role for B cells in atherosclerosis. The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Institute of Cardiovascular Prevention (IPEK) at LMU, RWTH Aachen University, the Peptide Biochemistry lab at WZW/TUM, Yale University, and the University of Düsseldorf.
A second paper by the same lab gave further mechanistic insight into how MIF regulates the receptor expression on B cell. Omar El Bounkari and his team unveil a connection between the pro-proliferative activity of MIF/CD74 signaling in B cells and inflammation (Klasen et al., Cell Signal 2018) uThis study was performed in collaboration with RWTH Aachen University and the Peptide Biochemistry lab at WZW/TUM.
Dositej Obradović fellowship award
Nov 2017 – Jelena Milic, first year PhD student in the Bernhagen lab at ISD, was awarded the Dositej Oradovic scholarship. This prize is awarded by the Fund for Young Talents of the Ministry of Youth and Sports of the Republic of Serbia for the best students from Serbia at EU Member State and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) universities and the world's leading universities and it encompasses a prize money of 4,600.85,- € to stimulate the outstanding achievements of the young talents of Serbia in various fields in terms of their further theoretical and professional development. Jelena performs her PhD thesis under the supervision of Jürgen Bernhagen and in the framework of the Munich Medical Research School (MMRS) of LMU. Her thesis focuses on elucidating the mechanisms underlying the protective role of the COP9 signalosome (CSN) signaling complex in atherosclerosis.
"MIF Family Cytokines in Innate Immunity and Homeostasis“
Dec 2017 – Jürgen Bernhagen, Chair of Vascular Biology at ISD, has edited a comprehensive book in the field of inflammation research. The book is titled: "MIF Family Cytokines in Innate Immunity and Homeostasis“ and was published within the Springer series "Progress in Inflammation Research“ (Progress in Inflammation Research; ISBN 978-3-319-52352-1; ISBN 978-3-319-52354-5 (eBook); DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52354; Springer International Publishing AG 2017; Editors: J. Bernhagen, R. Bucala). Jürgen co-edited the book together with Prof. Richard Bucala, a Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. The book covers recent advances in our understanding on the inflammatory mechanisms of MIF family proteins and their role in various inflammatory diseases, including promising MIF-based therapeutic avenues.
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Happy to participate at the ISD Research Retreat 2022 after two years break
Congratulations to Chungfang Zan for a successful Phd defense! Well done!
First group lunch after a long corona break.
Ramadan Bayram at AG Bernhagen and AG Gökce
Exciting science, great location and fun at 2019 ISD Retreat in Herrsching/Ammersee
Lisa’s farewell
25 February 2018 – Lisa Schindler obtained a prestigious 12-month DAAD fellowship to perform part of her PhD thesis at Mark Hampton’s lab in Christchurch, NZ.
CSC-LMU fellowship awardees Chunfang Zan, Ying Gao, and Hao Ji start their PhD theses
On 1 Oct 2018, Chunfang Zan and Ying Gao joined the Bernhagen Lab. Chunfang holds a master degree in Clinical Medicine from Jilin University, Changchun, China, and Ying holds a master in Neurology from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. Both received a prestigious Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC)-LMU fellowship following competitive selection among hundreds of applicants. The fellowship allows them to pursue a 3-4 year PhD project at LMU. Together with Ji Hao, another successful CSC scholar and PhD candidate in the neighboring Gokce Lab, they just successfully passed the exam concluding the LMU-CSC introductory training in September 2018.
The photos were taken at the opening ceremony of the 2018 CSC-LMU program, which took place on 10 Oct at LMU Biomedical Center (BMC) and was led by LMU Vice President Professor van Ess, the Chinese General Consulate, LMU Vice President Prof. Conrad, and Drs. Lauterbach and Zhang from the LMU International Office. The PhD candidates were awarded their training certificates and notably, Hao delivered one of the welcome addresses.
ISD Retreat 2018
10 July 2018 – The whole group participated at this year’s ISD retreat at Lake Ammersee in Herrsching. Great science, great fun
