School of Biomedical Sciences is pleased to invite you to join the following seminar:

Date: 13 October 2023 (Friday)
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: HKJC-S3, Room G-05, G/F, The Jockey Club Building for Interdisciplinary Research, 5 Sassoon Road

Speaker: Professor Julia Kzhyshkowska, Institute of Transfusion Medicine and Immunology, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University
Talk Title: Epigenetic and metabolic programming of innate immunity in pathology
 

Biography

Professor Julia Kzhyshkowska is head of Department of Innate Immunity and Tolerance at the Inite of Transfusion Medicine and Immunology, Medical Faculty, University of Heidelberg. Professor Kzhyshkowska has received her PhD in oncology from for Russia Academy of Medical Sciences in 1997, worked as Postdoc at University of Regensburg from 1997 and 2001, and progressed from junior group leader to a professor of cell and molecular biology at the University of Heidelberg. She is leading of expert in Immunology of European Commission, and editor of several immunological journals.  Her research field include mechanisms of chronic inflammation underlying cancer, diabetes and implant rejection. Mechanistic studies are focused on membrane transport, metabolism and epigenetics in innate immunity.

Abstract
Monocytes and macrophages are key innate immune cells that control inflammatory reactions associated with diabetic vascular complications. Inflammatory programming of macrophages is regulated and maintained by epigenetic mechanisms, in particular histone modifications.

Hyperglycaemia (HG) is a hallmark of diabetes and is a critical factor in the initiation of diabetic complications. Macrophages are key innate immune cells that regulate inflammatory responses leading to the development of micro- and macrovascular diabetic complications. The talk will cover the state-of-the art in macrophage diversity and plasticity, and their connection to epigenetic programming and metabolic pathways. The talk will include our most recent data on hyperglycaemia-induced specific transcriptional changes and underlying epigenetic mechanisms in human macrophages. The data will be presented for genes that control vascular inflammations, as well as for TLR system acting on the interface of innate immunity and dyslipidaemia. The strategy for the epigenetic editing of innate immunity will be presented.

ALL ARE WELCOME

Should you have any enquiries, please feel free to contact Miss Angela Wong at 3917 9216.