Early career support: The TRR60 Junior Group

Since 2010 the medical faculty in Essen has associated a junior group on chronic viral infections to the TRR60, which was headed by Anke Kraft during the first funding period. She has been followed by Dr. Kathrin Sutter (Gibbert) from February 2013. Financial support for this group comes exclusively from the medical faculty. This support will be continued during the second funding period as TRR60 Associated Project AP3N and also includes one doctoral position and one technician.

Project AP3N:
Antiviral activity of different Interferon-α subtypes during chronic viral infections

Dr. Kathrin Sutter (Gibbert), Institute for Virology, Essen

We have previously shown that the therapeutic treatment with some murine IFN-α subtypes significantly decreased viral loads in mice infected with Friend retrovirus (FV) In this project we aim to analyze the various biological activities of murine IFN-α subtypes during therapeutic treatment of FV-infected mice. The main focus of the project will be on the biological properties of the different human IFN-α subtypes and their impact on the chronic viruses HBV, HCV, HIV and HCMV. We are mainly interested in expression of various IFN-stimulated genes and the modulation of immune cell functions by different IFN-α subtypes.