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Gegründet im Jahr 1873 gehört das IPA zu den ältesten Forschungsinstituten der Medizinischen Universität Wien.
Derzeit haben wir 130 interdisziplinäre und internationale MitarbeiterInnen, deren Forschungsarbeit darauf abzielt, pathophysiologische Vorgänge besser zu verstehen und daraus innovative Konzepte zu entwickeln, die der Diagnose, Prophylaxe und Therapie von Erkrankungen dienen. Zusätzlich legen wir Wert auf höchste Qualität in der Lehre und Ausbildung von MedizinerInnen und NaturwissenschafterInnen. Darüber hinaus bietet das IPA die postgradualen
Ausbildungen zu FachärztInnen für Pathophysiologie und Immunologie an.
Research News
Common variable immunodeficiency is the most common symptomatic primary immunodeficiency that is characterized by low levels of serum IgG, IgA and sometimes IgM. The patients suffer from recurrent infections of the upper and lower respiratory tract but many also develop more severe symptoms such as autoimmune manifestations, granulomas and lymphomas. Although autoimmune manifestations are commonly seen we still know little about B-cell selection in these patients. Therefore, we decided to investigate both central and peripheral B cell selection mechanisms in CVID by comparing patients with infection only to those with autoimmune manifestations. We demonstrate that the central B-cell tolerance is intact as measured by receptor editing. On the other hand, we found that peripheral B-cell selection in the germinal centre is defective. This was corroborated by the severely reduced number of somatic mutations, especially replacement mutations, in those patients with autoimmune manifestations. Finally, we show that in vitro activation of naive B cells in CVID B cells lead to suboptimal activation of the mismatch repair machinery, which could at least partially explain why the process of somatic hypermutation is not working optimally in these. Read more
The fact that allergic inflammation and rhinovirus infection act synergistically in triggering airway inflammation gathered authors´ interest to develop a treatment that is effective for allergic as well as rhinovirus-induced rhinitis and asthma. Within their joint project they elaborate an innovative and efficient approach to catch pollen allergens at the nasal mucosa and hence stop allergen penetration into the body. Their concept was based on bispecific antibody conjugates capable to simultaneously bind to pollen allergens present in the air and to the transmembrane glycoprotein intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1), highly expressed on the respiratory epithelium of allergic patients. Since ICAM-1 is a major receptor for rhinovirus, bispecific antibody conjugates additionally protect against rhinovirus infection due to their receptor blocking capacity. Next, in vivo testing is envisaged to confirm the clinical efficacy of bispecific antibody conjugates for protection against allergic and viral airway diseases. This research was funded by grants F4607, I3946-B33, F4613 and P29398 of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and by the Country of Lower Austria’s funded Danube Allergy research cluster (P09 and P13). Read more
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Forschungsprojekt des Teams um Assoz. Prof. DDr. Eva Untersmayr-Elsenhuber wurde beim "OIS zam: Forum für Gesundheit und Wohlbefinden 2023" ausgezeichnet.
The project of the team of Anastasia Meshcheryakova, Diana Mechtcheriakova and Peter Pietschmann was granted by the Medical Scientific Fund of the Mayor of the City of Vienna/Medizinisch-Wissenschaftlichen Fonds des Bürgermeisters der Bundeshauptstadt Wien. The study is entitled “RNA-binding proteins as novel effectors in osteoclasts and osteoblasts: a systems biology approach to dissect the transcriptional road map”.
Maria Strobl was awarded the Publication Award of the Young Scientist Association (YSA) of the Medical University of Vienna for the publication "The role of IgG1 and IgG4 as dominant IgE-blocking antibodies shifts during allergen immunotherapy" which was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. In this study, the team led by Prof. Barbara Bohle longitudinally monitored allergen-specific IgG1 and IgG4 responses in terms of concentration, IgE-blocking activity, and avidity during three years of birch pollen immunotherapy. Their findings expand our knowledge on the kinetics of the humoral immune response to allergen immunotherapy and the relevance of allergen-specific IgG1.
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