Category: Seminar

In our next NSI Rising Star Seminar, we will be hosting Mariana Borsa (PhD, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel) with a talk on “DamAged memories: how autophagy-dependent mitochondrial inheritance shapes T cell diversity”. Look forward to seeing you there!

Meeting details:
Speaker: Mariana Borsa
Title: DamAged memories: how autophagy-dependent mitochondrial inheritance shapes T cell diversity
Time and date: Wednesday, August 13 at 10:00
Meeting link: https://uio.zoom.us/j/61201709553?pwd=O2JaAwQ8427DcwqGCgwwHz36wBxqqa.1

Talk abstract:
T cell immunity is impaired during ageing, particularly in memory responses needed for efficient vaccination. Autophagy and asymmetric cell division (ACD) are cell biological mechanisms key to memory formation, which undergo a decline upon ageing. Thus, we aimed to decipher whether autophagy regulates the early rise of asymmetric T cell fates and investigate whether there is a causal link between ACD and in vivo T cell fate decisions. Proteomic analysis of first-division CD8+ T cells revealed that mitochondrial proteins rely on autophagy for their asymmetric inheritance and that damaged mitochondria are polarized upon first division. Using a novel mouse model to track mitochondrial age, we found that daughter cells inheriting old mitochondria showed reduced quiescence, glycolytic bias, poor survival, and limited memory potential. In contrast, cells devoid of old organelles formed long-lived, functional memory T cells. Multi-omics linked this fate divergence to one-carbon metabolism, modulated by serine availability. Our findings reveal how autophagy and mitochondrial quality imprint early T cell fates—insights with relevance for improving immunity in the context of ageing and regenerative medicine.

More information about Mariana Borsa:
Mariana is an immunologist investigating how organelle inheritance influences immune cell fate. Her previous work has focused on the role of autophagy and asymmetric cell division in the generation of long-lived memory T cells. Originally from Brazil, she earned her PhD in Immunology at ETH Zurich, where she received the ETH Silver Medal for her thesis on T cell fate decisions. To pursue her postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford, she was awarded Sir Henry Wellcome, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, and SNSF fellowships. Her research integrates cell biology, immunology, and metabolism using in vivo models and multi-omics approaches. In September 2025, she will launch her independent lab at the University of Basel, supported by an SNSF Starting Grant.
Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jcS9CZUAAAAJ&hl=en

Key papers: 
1. Autophagy-regulated mitochondrial inheritance controls early CD8+ T cell fate commitment.
2. Autophagy preserves hematopoietic stem cells by restraining mTORC1-mediated cellular anabolism.
3. Asymmetric cell division shapes naive and virtual memory T-cell immunity during ageing.
4. Modulation of asymmetric cell division as a mechanism to boost CD8 T cell memory.

In our next NSI Rising Star Seminar, we will be hosting Klaus Eyer (PhD, associate professor, Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University) with a talk on “The Many Functions of individual Immune Cells:  Exploring Polyfunctionality and Polyspecificity on the single-B cell level”. Look forward to seeing you there!

Meeting details:
Speaker: Klaus Eyer
Title: The Many Functions of individual Immune Cells:  Exploring Polyfunctionality and Polyspecificity on the single-B cell level
Time and date: Thursday, June 19 at 14:00
Meeting link: https://uio.zoom.us/j/61981540552

Talk abstract:
Immune responses are driven by various individual cells acting without central coordination. Each cell contributes distinct functions that dynamically adapt, and the collective behavior ultimately shapes the immune outcome. Indeed, single-cell analysis can advance our understanding of these responses with the necessary resolution. While single-cell analysis has advanced significantly in proteomics, genomics and transcriptomics, these approaches only partially reflect actual cellular function and activity. Therefore, our laboratory is working on developing systems to quantify, apply and use individual cellular functions in fundamental questions and clinical applications to unlock their full transformative and translational potential.
During this presentation, we will discuss two very recent, not yet published studies from our laboratory. The first focuses on polyfunctionality of individual B cells, and its temporality – the ability of cells to secrete multiple, distinct proteins either sequentially or simultaneously, and the potential impacts of temporality on function. The second focuses on a new technique that analyzes individual antibodies for their potential to be polyreactive. Indeed, current technologies with single-antibody resolution typically measure binding to only one or a few recombinant antigens, often ignoring specificity and polyreactivity as parameters. We present a method for screening antibody repertoires at single-antibody resolution against a large library of protein variants, using SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) mutants to identify the antigenic spectrum of rare, polyreactive antibodies. Using multiplexed antigen sequencing, we performed mutational scanning, enrichment, and escape analysis to map epitopes of the sum and individual polyreactive antibodies within the immunization-generated antibody repertoire.

More information about Klaus Eyer:
Dr. Klaus Eyer has been an associate professor at the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University since February 2024. He has a background in pharmaceutical sciences and earned his doctorate in Bioanalytics from ETH Zurich, and his research focuses on functional immune repertoire analysis and single-cell technologies. In the past, Dr. Eyer has held academic positions at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and ESPCI Paris in France and combines different disciplines in his work.
He collaborates locally and internationally on projects related to antibody discovery and immune profiling/characterization, with a focus on their application in neuroinflammation, rare diseases, and personalized medicine. In addition to his research, he is actively involved in teaching, mentoring, and translational activities, including co-founding a biotech start-up, coordinating a doctoral network throughout Europe and contributing to public discussions on science and adaptive immunity following immunization.
Google scholar: https://scholar.google.fr/citations?user=PRtGoGAAAAAJ&hl=en

Key papers: 
1. Single-cell deep phenotyping of cytokine release unmasks stimulation-specific biological signatures and distinct secretion dynamics
2. Single-cell deep phenotyping of IgG-secreting cells for high-resolution immune monitoring

In our next NSI Rising Star Seminar, we will be hosting Tetsuo Hasegawa (PhD, group leader of Molecular Immunity, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Cambridge) with a talk on “3D imaging of the synovium defines an intricate immunological defence system at the blood-joint barrier”. Look forward to seeing you there!

Meeting details:
Speaker: Tetsuo Hasegawa
Title: 3D imaging of the synovium defines an intricate immunological defence system at the blood-joint barrier
Time and date: Thursday, May 15 at 14:00
Meeting link: https://uio.zoom.us/j/64508414976

Talk abstract:
Joint pain or inflammation is a common and early feature of a variety of systemic diseases. These include autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), as well as infection in organs distant to the musculoskeletal system, including enteric or genitourinary infections, which manifest as reactive arthritis. However, why joints are highly responsive to systemic inflammation and where in the joint the inflammation starts are still unknown. We sought to address these questions by developing a whole mount imaging system of the membrane that covers the joint cavity, called synovium, to profile the vascular, neuronal and immune microarchitecture. This revealed that highly permeable capillaries were specifically located at the lining-sublining interface, in the periphery of the synovium, enabling entry of circulating stimuli into the joint. This area of vulnerability was occupied by three subsets of macrophages that demonstrated distinct responses to systemic immune complex challenge and reciprocally interacted with nociceptor neurons, forming a blood-joint barrier (BJB) to defend joint tissue.

More information about Tetsuo Hasegawa:
Dr. Hasegawa is an academic rheumatologist and received his medical degree from Keio University, Japan, in 2011. He went on to complete a Ph.D in the laboratory of Prof. Masaru Ishii at Osaka University, where he identified the pathological osteoclast precursor macrophages and elucidated the mechanism of bone destruction in arthritis. He then began his postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Prof. Menna Clatworthy at University of Cambridge through Human Frontier Science Program long-term fellowship. In 2024, He was awarded the Kennedy Trust Senior Research Fellowship to start his own group in University of Cambridge. His lab is generating a 3D molecular atlas of the membrane in the joint, called synovium, to investigate why joints are responsive to diverse systemic pathologies, how communication between synovial cells and nociceptors influences disease progression, and what mechanisms underlie immune-driven pain in the joints.
Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=R0cIJygAAAAJ&hl=en

Key papers: 
1. Macrophages and nociceptor neurons form a sentinel unit around fenestrated capillaries to defend the synovium from circulating immune challenge
2. Identification of a novel arthritis-associated osteoclast precursor macrophage regulated by FoxM1

In our next NSI Rising Star Seminar, we will be hosting Søren E. Degn (PhD, Associate Professor, DFF Research Leader and Lundbeckfonden Ascending Investigator) with a talk on “B cells – the bad boys at the back of the bus”. Look forward to seeing you there!

Meeting details:
Speaker: Søren E. Degn
Title: B cells – the bad boys at the back of the bus
Time and date: Thursday, February 27 at 14:00
Meeting link: https://uio.zoom.us/j/67297197985?pwd=bqgeirifg4EMy2Tph8fTcgzqlnWauU.1
Meeting ID: 672 9719 7985
Passcode: 916148

Talk abstract:
B cells are increasingly recognized not simply as precursors of antibody-producing cells, but as central players across a broad range of autoimmune diseases. In recent work, my group demonstrated that B cells can act as primary antigen-presenting cells priming proto-autoreactive T cells and driving epitope spreading in a murine model of systemic lupus erythematosus (Fahlquist-Hagert et al., Nature Communications 2023). Taking this as a starting point, I will touch upon recently published (Fahlquist-Hagert et al., iScience 2024) and unpublished work characterizing the role of T-follicular regulatory cells in curbing autoreactive germinal center responses, including the use of an intravital abdominal imaging window approach for longitudinal studies of immune processes in the spleen (https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.01.06.631523). Finally, I will present ongoing work, in which we have identified a previously unappreciated link between age-associated B cells and CD8 T cell activation and exhaustion.

More information about Søren E. Degn:
Søren completed his BSc (2004) and MSc (2007) in Molecular Biology at Aarhus University. During his MSc, he spent a year at the Departments of Biochemistry and Immunology at the University of Toronto, Canada where he worked with Professor David E. Isenman. Søren then joined the laboratory of Professors Jens Chr. Jensenius and Steffen Thiel, where he completed his PhD in Immunology (2010), on the topic of the lectin pathway of complement. His thesis work included the discovery of a novel regulatory component of this pathway, the protein MAp44 (Degn et al., Journal of Immunology 2009). In the course of his PhD studies, Søren also worked for a year in the laboratory of Professor Michael C. Carroll at the Immune Disease Institute, Harvard Medical School, where he contributed to elucidating how influenza viral antigen is transported and presented in the draining lymph node in a vaccination setting (Gonzalez et al., Nature Immunology 2010). Following award of his PhD degree, Søren continued his work on the lectin pathway of complement as a postdoctoral fellow (2011-2013) with Professors Jens Chr. Jensenius and Steffen Thiel. In a series of papers (Degn et al., Journal of Immunology 2012; Degn et al., Journal of Immunology 2013; Degn et al., PNAS 2014), Søren presented a novel theory for the activation mechanism of the lectin pathway of complement. In 2013, he returned to the laboratory of Professor Michael C. Carroll, now at the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine (PCMM) at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. During his Marie Curie Fellowship at the PCMM, Søren elucidated the clonal evolution of autoreactive germinal centers (Degn et al., Cell 2017), and built his expertise within lymphocyte biology using in vivo models and two-photon microscopy, forming the basis of his return to Aarhus University as a Group Leader and Assistant Professor in 2017. In March 2022, he was promoted to tenured Associate Professor at the Department of Biomedicine. Søren continues to work on autoimmune diseases (van der Poel et al., Cell Reports 2019; Juul-Madsen et al., PNAS 2021; Fahlquist-Hagert et al., Nature Communications 2023), but in recent years his attention has also turned to the molecular mechanism behind antigen-driven activation of the B-cell receptor (Ferapontov, Omer et al, Nature Communications 2023; Degn & Tolar, Nat. Rev. Immunol. 2024).
Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EyXW-8sAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Key papers: 
1. Antigen presentation by B cells enables epitope spreading across an MHC barrier
2. Antigen footprint governs activation of the B cell receptor

In our next NSI Rising Star Seminar, we will be hosting Anna Hammerich Thysen (Assistant Professor, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark) with a talk on “Do dural brain border immune cells mediate brain fog in allergic asthma?”. Look forward to seeing you there!

Meeting details:
https://uio.zoom.us/j/67297197985?pwd=bqgeirifg4EMy2Tph8fTcgzqlnWauU.1
Meeting ID: 672 9719 7985
Passcode: 916148

Title of the talk: Do dural brain border immune cells mediate brain fog in allergic asthma?

Abstract:
The Covid-19 pandemic emphasized the long-lasting neurological symptoms that accompany immune diseases of the lung. Individuals with airway allergy and asthma experience deficits in learning, memory and attention span; a so-called brain fog. For individuals with seasonal allergy, symptoms peak during the season of their allergen, suggesting a direct correlation between allergen dose and neurological response. Here, we address this otherwise overlooked symptom burden. Our hypothesis is that allergy-like immune cells at the dural brain border mediate the cognitive burden in airway allergy and asthma. We are establishing a mouse model for memory and learning deficits in allergic asthma. By combining our mouse model with high-dimensional flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, single cell analysis, and genetic mouse models, our aim is to 1) map the immunological and neurological mechanisms underlying lung-to-brain cognitive symptoms; and to 2) design and test novel treatment strategies.

Bio:
Dr. Anna Hammerich Thysen is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Anna received her PhD degree from the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood (COPSAC) under the supervision of Susanne Brix. Following collection of 189 immune cell and cytokine parameters in 541 infants; Anna identified discrete immune phenotypes in 18-months-old infants preceding the development of transient and persistent asthma at school age. During her postdoc in the lab of Katharina Lahl, Anna developed a neonatal re-infection model for respiratory syncytial virus in mice. Anna was able to show a critical role for cDC1 dendritic cells during healthy re-infection, and a lack of neonatal cDC1 DCs would lead to massive airway eosinophilia and type 2 immune pathology in adulthood. Anna then ventured into research in industry; first with neuroimmune diseases at Lundbeck and then allergy and asthma at ALK. As a solo mother of three young children, Anna is now in the initial stages of establishing her independent career with a research focus on type 2 immune regulation in the neuroimmune, viral, and neonatal aspects of airway disease.

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.dk/citations?user=8_OS3k4AAAAJ&hl=da

Key publications:

1. Distinct immune phenotypes in infants developing asthma during childhood. Science translational medicine 12, no. 529 (2020): eaaw0258.
2. Season of birth shapes neonatal immune function. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 137, no. 4 (2016): 1238-1246.