Research at the UKE?
DE
Feto-maternal immunology
We aim to understand the immune system during pregnancy in order to improve maternal and offspring’s health.
“We aim to understand the immune system during pregnancy in order to improve maternal and offspring’s health.”
Prof. Dr. Petra Arck
Project details and goals
Determinants of successful reproduction have emerged over millions of years in order to ensure survival of mammalian species. We utilize pre-clinical models and seek to translate resulting insights into the comprehensive evaluation of large human pregnancy studies with known outcomes and corresponding bio-samples. Our research also serves as a blueprint to inform multiple areas in the field of immunology, such as infection and autoimmunity.
Current projects – Arck Lab
Long-term programming of sex differences in immunity by prenatal exposure to stress
Prenatal adverse environments including the exposure to stress adversely program immunity later in life. Hereby, significant sex differences in childhood and during adult life have been observed. We here investigate how fetal exposure to prenatal glucocorticoid surges differentially modulates long-term immunity later in life of male and female offspring. This project is embedded in the RU5068
Further information:
Prediction of preterm birth - prevention of inequality among children
Each year, approx. 15 million babies worldwide are born prematurely, before gestation week 37. These children have an increased risk to die during their first year of life and to develop health problems. Despite continuous progress made in the field of preventive medicine over the last decades, the options to predict preterm birth are still very poor. Therefore, it is the goal of our project to characterize biological signatures that are predictive for preterm birth at a time point during pregnancies when no risk can be foreseen. Such knowledge will then inform future prenatal care and allows to identify pregnancies at risk for preterm birth by clinical routine screening. This project is funded with the Next Generation Partnerships Initiative of the BMBF/Excellence Initiative Hamburg
Further information:
Sexual and Reproductive Health in Overweight and Obesity
Overweight and obesity currently affects one third of the population in industrialized countries, including women and men during their reproductive years. During pregnancy, overweight and obesity significantly increases the risk for pregnancy complications and also interferes with fetal development and future health of the children. We are a member of the Interdisciplinary Junior Scientist Research Centre on Reproductive Health. In this centre, Medical and Clinician scientists are promoted to pursue research projects aiming to mitigate the overweight/obesity related health risks during reproduction. This project is funded by the BMBF.
ImplantEU
Embryo implantation in a receptive uterus is critical for mammalian reproduction, yet remains poorly understood. This challenge is particularly significant in human health, as up to two-thirds of human pregnancies are lost due implantation failure. Much remains unknown about the molecular pathways and regulatory mechanisms of embryo-endometrial/decidual interactions in humans. We here aim to develop an epigenetic blueprint of immune cells subsets during implantation. This project is embedded in a Doctoral Networks funded by Horizon 2023 (Website is currently being created).
Development of a web-based system to document scientific experiments and ensure animal welfare
Biomedical research relies heavily on laboratory animals, but guidelines for documenting animal experiments under the Animal Welfare Act are poorly defined. To address this, we aim to develop a comprehensive documentation system that complies with the law and integrates artificial intelligence to detect stress in laboratory animals. Funded by the Calls4Transfer program (https://callsfortransfer.de), this innovation will significantly contribute to legally compliant and optimized documentation of animal experiments while improving animal welfare.
Early determinants of health and diseases
The developmental trajectory of a child is shaped by a multitude of internal and external factors to which the mother is exposed to during pregnancy. These factors contribute to both the susceptibility to illnesses and the emergence of developmental disorders. As a member of the German Center for Child and Adolescent Health (https://dzkj.org), we aim to delineate the health hazards arising from the interplay between inherent predispositions and the dynamic environmental landscape. Additionally, we endeavour to elucidate the risk and resilience elements, and unravel the intricate mechanisms underpinning the onset of prevalent childhood diseases.
Team – Arck Lab
Prof. Dr. med. Petra Arck
Head
Dean’s office for Research
Project leader - Experimental Feto-Maternal Medicine
E-mail address:
Publications – Arck Lab
Yüzen D, Graf I, Tallarek AC, Hollwitz B, Wiessner C, Schleussner E, Stammer D, Padula A, Hecher K, Arck PC, Diemert A. Increased late preterm birth risk and altered uterine blood flow upon exposure to heat stress. EBioMedicine. 2023 Jul;93:104651.
Schepanski S, Chini M, Sternemann V, Urbschat C, Thiele K, Sun T, Zhao Y, Poburski M, Woestemeier A, Thieme MT, Zazara DE, Alawi M, Fischer N, Heeren J, Vladimirov N, Woehler A, Puelles VG, Bonn S, Gagliani N, Hanganu-Opatz IL, Arck PC. Pregnancy-induced maternal microchimerism shapes neurodevelopment and behavior in mice. Nat Commun. 2022 Aug 5;13(1):4571.
Stelzer IA, Urbschat C, Schepanski S, Thiele K, Triviai I, Wieczorek A, Alawi M, Ohnezeit D, Kottlau J, Huang J, Fischer N, Mittrücker HW, Solano ME, Fehse B, Diemert A, Stahl FR, Arck PC. Vertically transferred maternal immune cells promote neonatal immunity against early life infections. Nat Commun. 2021 Aug 4;12(1):4706.
Kinder JM, Stelzer IA, Arck PC, Way SS. Immunological implications of pregnancy-induced microchimerism. Nat Rev Immunol. 2017 Aug;17(8):483-494. doi: 10.1038/nri.2017.38. Open access.
Engels G, Hierweger AM, Hoffmann J, Thieme R, Thiele S, Bertram S, Dreier C, Resa-Infante P, Jacobsen H, Thiele K, Alawi M, Indenbirken D, Grundhoff A, Siebels S, Fischer N, Stojanovska V, Muzzio D, Jensen F, Karimi K, Mittrücker HW, Arck PC*, Gabriel G*. Pregnancy-Related Immune Adaptation Promotes the Emergence of Highly Virulent H1N1 Influenza Virus Strains in Allogenically Pregnant Mice. Cell Host Microbe. 2017 Mar 8;21(3):321-333.
Alumni
- Ina Stelzer
– Professor of Pathology, University of California San Diego - María Emilia Solano
– Professor of Translational Perinatologie - Steven Schepanski
– PhD Medical Scientist - Ronja Wörle
Continued medical training - Josina Hofer
– Continued medical training - Susanne Höötmann
– Continued medical training - Pauline Wiemers
– Continued medical training - Tayyip Kehribar
– Continued medical training - Dennis Yüzen
– PhD Medical Scientist
- Sarah Kabisch
– MD Clinical Scientist - Amy Padul
– Associate Professor, Reproductive Science, University of California San Fransisco - Marie Thieme
– PhD candidate, BNITM - Nadine Felber
– technician - Allesia Negroni
– PhD candidate, MDC Berlin - Niels Gehlen
– aspiring PhD candidate - Lina Rikas
– Continued medical training