Dirk Brenner

The immune system is crucial for a health body function and protects us from severe infection. However, dysregulated immunity can cause inflammation, autoimmunity and cancer. Especially, the control of immune cell metabolism as emerged as a powerful way to regulate immunity and might initiate the next wave of immune-modulatory therapeutics. The Brenner laboratory investigates the metabolic regulation of the immune system and how this ensures a coordinated immune response and homeostasis. We seek to define molecular, metabolic and cellular processes of inflammation and integrate in vitro with in vivo studies to gain a comprehensive picture of inflammation and cancer. To address our research questions, we employ a wide variety of methods and approaches. These span from traditional molecular, cellular, and biochemical analyses to advanced techniques such as metabolic flux analysis, mass spectrometry, transcriptomics, epigenetics, genetic targeting, multi-color flow cytometry/sorting and diverse imaging methods. These techniques are combined with our work on sophisticated murine genetic in vivo disease models and human models. Although our lab isn’t centered around particular methods, we’ll employ any technique required to effectively tackle our research questions.