Felix Randow
- Cell autonomous innate immunity, i.e. the ability of individual cells to defend themselves against infection
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Location
- MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
About
since 2003 Group Leader at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
1997-2002 Postdoc in Brian Seed’s lab at Harvard Medical School
1993-1997 Dr. rer. nat. (Ph.D.) at Humboldt University Berlin
Research
Research interests
- Shigella
- Immunology
- Signal Transduction
- NF-kB
- Receptors
- Host-pathogen interactions
- Salmonella
We are interested in how cells defend themselves against infection.
Cells use ‘pattern recognition receptors’ (PRRs) to detect pathogens based on phylogenetically conserved structures. The ligand specificity of PRRs and their site of expression enable cells to determine the identity and subcellular localization of invading pathogens. This complex information is transduced into tailor-made responses optimized to eradicate, for example, Gram-positive bacteria from the cytosol or parasites hiding in vacuoles. Many fundamental aspects of innate immunity are therefore cell autonomous features and the genetic analysis of mammalian somatic cells is a powerful approach to elucidate how cells respond to microbial challenge.
In addition to our long-standing interest in NF-kB and IRF signalling, we wish to understand how cells deploy ubiquitin and autophagy to defend their cytosol against bacterial invasion.