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May 2019 - Anna-Dorothea Gorki

Dr. Anna-Dorothea Gorki

MedUni Wien RESEARCHER OF THE MONTH May 2019

Cellular crosstalk in the developing lung

The lung’s main function is the vital gas exchange but in the background a variety of specialized cells work closely together to keep invading pathogens in check. How this complex organ develops and which cellular crosstalk is needed during embryonal stages and after birth is mainly unknown. During her PhD studies Anna-Dorothea Gorki from the Knapp lab at the MedUni of Vienna and CeMM, the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, started a collaboration with the research group of the renowned scientist Prof. Ido Amit at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. In their work “Lung single cell signaling interaction map reveals basophil role in macrophage imprinting“ published in Cell (DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2018.09.009) they could establish the first comprehensive “cell atlas” of the developing lung by using high throughput single-cell RNA sequencing. In addition they looked at inter-lineage crosstalk during different phases of lung development and found an important role for lung-specific basophils on the maturation of macrophages, the first line of defense in the lung.

Selected Literature

1.   Cohen, M.*, Giladi, A.*, Gorki, A.-D.*, Solodkin, D.G., Zada, M., Hladik, A., Miklosi, A., Salame, T.-M., Halpern, K.B., David, E., Itzkovitz, S., Harkany, T., Knapp, S., Amit, I. (2018). Lung Single-Cell Signaling Interaction Map Reveals Basophil Role in Macrophage Imprinting. Cell 175, 1031–1044.

* authors contributed equally

2.   Saluzzo, S., Gorki, A.-D., Rana, B.M.J., Martins, R., Scanlon, S., Starkl, P., Lakovits, K., Hladik, A., Korosec, A., Sharif, O., Warszawska, J.M., Jolin, H., Mesteri, I., McKenzie, A.N.J, Knapp, S. (2017). First-Breath-Induced Type 2 Pathways Shape the Lung Immune Environment. Cell Rep. 18, 1893–1905.

3.   Chirumbolo, S. (2012) State-of-the-art review about basophil research in immunology and allergy: is the time right to treat these cells with the respect they deserve? Blood Transfus 10, 148–164.


Dr.in Anna-Dorothea Gorki

Medizinische Universität Wien
Universitätsklinik für Innere Medizin I
Forschungslabor für Infektionsbiologie
Währinger Gürtel 18-20
1090 Wien

T: +43 (0)1 40400-51400
anna-dorothea.gorki@meduniwien.ac.at