Immune Signaling
Dr. Lina Herhaus
After high school, Lina obtained her first lab work experience in Mexico at the Research center ECOSUR. She then decided to study Applied Biology at the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (Germany) and Molecular Biology at the University of Dundee (UK). She obtained a double degree with Honors. Lina performed her Ph.D. studies at the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit in Dundee under Gopal Sapkota. Her dissertation focused on deubiquitylating enzymes regulating the TGF-beta and BMP signaling pathways. Following her Ph.D. studies, Lina received an EMBO fellowship for her postdoctoral research in the lab of Ivan Dikic to work on linear ubiquitylation and autophagy. After her postdoctoral work, she joined the Frankfurt Cancer Institute as a cellular and biochemical analysis platform staff scientist. Lina is now a team leader of the Immune Signaling program, which aims to decipher TBK1-mediated signaling in different pathologies.
Dr. Aparna Viswanathan Ammanath
Aparna is originally from Kerala, India. She obtained her PhD from Dept. of Microbial Genetics, Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, University of Tübingen. Her work focused on development of narrow spectrum anti-infective peptides from Staphylococcus aureus lipoprotein. Previously, she worked at the Center for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, India, developing polymer based gels and nanoparticles for wound healing in mice models.
Uxía Gestal Mato
Uxía was born in A Coruña, Spain. In 2018, she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid), together with an accompanying degree as “Expert in biotechnological research methodology”. For her BSc thesis, she joined Prof. Ivan Dikic’s group where she focused on the regulation of selective autophagy pathways and their contribution to host defense against intracellular pathogens. Later, she enrolled in the MSc Program of Molecular Biosciences at Heidelberg University, where she majored in Molecular and Cellular Biology. During her stay in Heidelberg, she had the opportunity to discover different fields of research as a rotation student in the groups of Prof. Melchior, Prof. Schuck, and Prof. Krause. She has now joined the Herhaus Group as a master student to study autophagy and its role in immune signaling.
Past Members:
Ivan Bagaric
Ivan has joined the laboratory for his bachelor thesis to study autophagy in the context of immune signaling. Supervised by Lina Herhaus, he focused on the interaction of the Immunity related GTPase Q (IRGQ) with the autophagy machinery and its impact on immune signaling using biochemical assays and fluorescence microscopy. He is currently enrolled in the Master's program "Molecular Biosciences" at the University of Heidelberg majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Jeannett Smidt-Larsen
Is originally from Denmark and is doing a bachelor's in Laboratory Technician in Denmark at the business academy Aarhus. She joined the Ivan Dikic lab in August 2020 for a year internship as a part of her Education.
TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1) is a multifunctional serine/threonine protein kinase that belongs to the noncanonical IkB kinase family and exerts a broad spectrum of functions in cells, ranging from anti-viral immunity, inflammation and IFN signaling, through selective autophagy, specifically mitophagy and xenophagy, to EMT and energy homeostasis. Thus, it is not surprising that TBK1 is involved in many cellular signaling pathways that contribute to oncogenesis or neurological diseases.
TBK1 links inflammatory pathways to autophagy, which is a quality control process to deliver cytosolic components for targeted lysosomal degradation. It promotes protein/organelle homeostasis during selective autophagy by phosphorylating autophagy modifiers and receptors, thereby regulating autophagy during various steps of autophagosome formation (Herhaus et al., 2015; Richter et al.,2016; Herhaus et al., 2019). Moreover, TBK1 plays a central role in innate immunity, as it acts as an integrator of receptor-mediated pathogen detection signals and IFN level modulator. In conclusion, TBK1 is a central kinase at the crossroads of inflammatory interferon signaling and selective autophagy.
How these highly orchestrated TBK1 signaling cascades interact and contribute to human diseases is not well understood. In our lab, we aim to evaluate different TBK1-mediated pathways, by employing state-of-the-art mass spectrometry and imaging facilities, together with classical biochemical assays. This research will provide us with a mechanism-based rationale for the development of new therapeutics.