Johannes B. Huppa, PhD
Associate Professor
email: Johannes.Huppa@meduniwien.ac.at
research interests: T-cell antigen recognition, immunology, cell biology, biophysics, molecular imaging, synthetic biology, systems biology
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In the Huppa lab we are interested in how the adaptive and innate branch of the immune system work together to distinguish between friend and foe. For the most part, our curiosity revolves around three questions:
- How do T-cells recognize antigens on a cellular, subcellular and molecular level?
- How do professional antigen presenting cells or target cells modulate antigen-specific T-cell responses?
- How does T-cell antigen recognition proceed in a setting of a viral infection, cancer and autoimmunity?
We are aiming for quantitative answers by cell biological, biophysical and genetic means to explain how T-cells establish their exquisite antigen selectivity and sensitivity and maintain the right balance between tolerance and immunity. We work to exploit our findings to harness T-cells for advanced immunotherapies.
To this end we engineer fluorescent probes and functionalized planar supported lipid bilayers, which we employ to study primary T-cells and antigen presenting cells via advanced molecular imaging modalities. We complement microscopy with state of the art methods in immunology, molecular biology and systems biology to monitor and manipulate gene expression and immune function.
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education and research experience
- undergraduate studies of biochemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin
- graduate thesis work at MIT and Harvard Medical School
- postdoctoral fellow and research associate at Stanford University School of Medicine
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selected publications
original research articles
- Inefficient CAR-proximal signaling blunts antigen sensitivity. Gudipati V., Rydzek J. Doel Perez I., Scharf L., Königsberger S., Lobner E., Dos Reis Gonçalves V., Kunert R., Einsele H., Stockinger H., Hudecek M. and Huppa J.B. (2020) [published online ahead of print, 2020 Jul 6] Nature Immunology;10.1038/s41590-020-0719-0. doi:10.1038/s41590-020-0719-0.
- TCRs are randomly distributed on the plasma membrane of resting antigen-experienced T cells. Rossboth B., Arnold A.M., Ta H., Platzer R., Kellner F., Huppa J.B., Brameshuber M., Baumgart F., Schütz G.J. (2018) Nature Immunology 19(8):821-827, doi: 10.1038/s41590-018-0162-7.
- Monomeric TCRs Drive T-Cell Antigen Recognition. Brameshuber M., Kellner F., Rossboth B.K., Ta H., Alge K., Sevcsik E., Göhring J., Axmann M., Baumgart F., Gascoigne N.R.J., Davis S.J., Stockinger H., Schütz G.J. Huppa J.B. (2018) Nature Immunology, 19(5):487-496, doi: 10.1038/s41590-018-0092-4.
- TCR-peptide-MHC interactions in situ show accelerated kinetics and increased affinity. Huppa J.B., Axmann, M., Mörtelmaier M.A., Lillemeier B.F., Newell E.W, Brameshuber M., Klein L.O., Schütz G.J., Davis M.M. (2010) Nature, 463: 963-967.
commentary and book contribution
- T-Cell Antigen Recognition – Lessons from the Past and Projections into the Future. Platzer R. and Huppa J.B. (2020) Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (eLS) John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0001229.pub3
- How drag sharpens a T cell's view on antigen. Schütz G.J., Huppa J.B. (2019) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA;116(34):16669-16671, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1911389116.
please contact Johannes Huppa for pdf-reprints.
find a list of all publications by Johannes Huppa in PubMed or here.
